Nnal‐like proteins are active metallocarboxypeptidases of a new and diverse M14 subfamily

Nnal has some sequence similarity to metallocarboxypeptidases, but the biochemical characterization of Nnal has not previously been reported. In this work we performed a detailed genomic scan and found >100 Nnal homologues in bacteria, Protista, and Anima‐lia, including several paralogs in most eukaryotic species. Phylogenetic analysis of the Nnal‐like sequences demonstrates a major divergence between Nnal‐like peptidases and the previously known metallocarboxypeptidases subfamilies: M14A, M14B, and M14C. Conformational mod‐eling of representative Nnal‐like proteins from a variety of species indicates an unusually open active site, a property that might facilitate its action on a wide variety of peptide and protein substrates. To test this, we expressed a recombinant form of one of the Nnal‐like peptidases from Caenσrhabditis elegans and demonstrated that this protein is a fully functional metaUocarboxypeptidase that cleaves a range of C‐terminal amino acids from synthetic peptides. The enzymatic activity is activated by ATP/ADP and salt‐inactivated, and is preferentially inhibited by Z‐Glu‐Tyr dipeptide, which is without precedent in metallocarboxypeptidases and resembles tubulin carboxypeptidase functioning; this hypothesis is strongly reinforced by the results depicted in Kalinina et al. published as accompanying paper in this journal (1). Our findings demonstrate that the M14 family of metallocarboxypeptidases is more complex and diverse than expected, and that Nnal‐like peptidases are functional variants of such enzymes, representing a novel subfamily (we propose the name M14D) that contributes substantially to such diversity.—Rodriguez de la Vega, M., Sevilla, R. G., Hermoso, A., Lorenzo, J., Tanco, S., Diez, A., Fricker, L. D., Bautista, J. M., Avilés, F. X. Nna1‐like proteins are active metallocarboxypeptidases of a new and diverse M14 subfamily. FASEB J. 20, 851–865 (2007)