Research Article Molecular Dynamics Studies on the Conformational Transitions of Adenylate Kinase: A Computational Evidence for the Conformational Selection Mechanism

permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Escherichia coli adenylate kinase (ADK) is amonomeric phosphotransferase enzyme that catalyzes reversible transfer of phosphoryl group from ATP to AMP with a large-scale domain motion. The detailed mechanism for this conformational transition remains unknown. In the current study, we performed long time-scale molecular dynamics simulations on both open and closed states of ADK. Based on the structural analyses of the simulation trajectories, we detected over 20 times conformational transitions between the open and closed states of ADK and identified two novel conformations as intermediate states in the catalytic processes. With these findings, we proposed a possible mechanism for the large-scale domain motion of Escherichia coli ADK and its catalytic process: (1) the substrate free ADK adopted an open conformation; (2) ATP bound with LID domain closure; (3) AMP bound with NMP domain closure; (4) phosphoryl transfer occurred with ATP, and AMP converted into two ADPs, and no conformational transition was detected in the enzyme; (5) LID domain opened with one ADP released; (6) another ADP released with NM