Density functional study of the phosphate diester hydrolysis of RNA in RNA/DNA hybrid by RNase HI

<div><p>Ribonuclease HI (RNase HI) catalyses the non-specific hydrolysis of RNA in an RNA/DNA hybrid. This enzyme is found in almost all organisms and involved in replication initiation and DNA topology restoration. A similar fold has been observed in other enzymes such as DNA transposases. In particular, RNases HI has emerged as important therapeutic targets because the enzymatic activity is absolutely required for proliferation of HIV and other retroviruses. The X-ray crystallographic structures of RNase HI revealed that the Mg²⁺ ion is essential for the enzymatic reaction and that Asp and Glu coordinate to the Mg²⁺ ion. There are, however, controversies about the catalytic mechanism of RNase HI, the number of Mg²⁺ ions, the proton transfer pathway, and the protonation states of the active site residues. In the present study, we have explored the hydrolysis of the phosphate diester group of RNA by RNase HI using density functional theory to elucidate how many Mg²⁺ ions are required for the catalysis of RNase HI. Our computation demonstrates that both one- and two-metal models show the stepwise hydrolysis pathway via a pentacovalent intermediate. However, the activation barrier of the two-metal model is lower than that of the one-metal model by 11.7 kcal/mol.</p>