Open AccessMolecular dynamics simulations of solvated UDP–glucose in interaction with Mg 2+ cations
Author(s) -
Petrová Pavla,
Koča Jaroslav,
Imberty Anne
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
european journal of biochemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1432-1033
pISSN - 0014-2956
DOI - 10.1046/j.0014-2956.2001.02469.x
Subject(s) - chemistry , divalent , pyrophosphate , substrate (aquarium) , enzyme , nucleotide , nucleotide sugar , molecular dynamics , stereochemistry , glycosyltransferase , moiety , active site , crystallography , catalysis , biochemistry , computational chemistry , organic chemistry , gene , oceanography , geology
Glycosyltransferases are key enzymes involved in biosynthesis of oligosaccharides. Nucleotide‐sugars, the glycosyltransferase substrates, serve as activated donors of sugar residues during the enzymatic reaction Although very little is known about the catalytic mechanism of these enzymes, it appears that the catalytic activity in most glycosyltransferases is dependent upon the presence of a divalent cation, for example Mn 2+ or Mg 2+ . It is not known whether the ion is bound to the enzyme before its interaction with the substrate, or if it binds the substrate before the enzymatic reaction to modify its conformation to fit better the active site of the enzyme. We have inspected the latter possibility by running four 2‐ns molecular dynamics trajectories on fully solvated UDP‐glucose in the presence of Mg 2+ ions. Our results indicate that the divalent cation interacts strongly with the nucleotide‐sugar in solution, and that it can alter its conformational behavior. It is also shown that a conformation of the pyrophosphate moiety that results in an eclipsed or almost eclipsed orientation of two of the oxygen atoms, and which is found in protein interacting with a nucleotide di‐ or tri‐phosphate X‐ray data, is energetically favored. The results are also discussed in light of existing NMR data, and are found to be in a good agreement with them.