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Structural plasticity broadens the specificity of an engineered protease

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Abstract

The substrate specificity of α-lytic protease has been changed dramatically, with a concomitant increase in activity, by replacing an active-site Met with Ala. The substrate specificity of both this mutant and another similar mutant are extraordinarily broad. X-ray crystallographic analysis shows that structural plasticity, a combination of alternate side-chain conformations and binding-site flexibility, allows both large and small substrates to be well accommodated.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics and The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, California, 94143-0448, USA

    Roger Bone, Joy L. Silen & David A. Agard

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  1. Roger Bone
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  2. Joy L. Silen
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  3. David A. Agard
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Bone, R., Silen, J. & Agard, D. Structural plasticity broadens the specificity of an engineered protease. Nature 339, 191–195 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1038/339191a0

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