Structure, activity and metabolism of human glutamate carboxypeptidase II

CONCLUSIONS AND PERSPECTIVES Recentry reported crystal sructures of GCpII provide stucturar insight into the organization of the substrate binding cavity and highlight residues implicated in substrate / inhibitor binding in the sI site of the enzyme. To comprement and extend the s[ucturar studies, we constructed a QMzMM model of GCPII in complex with its substrate, N-aceýt. aspartyl-glutamate, which enabled us to pÍedict additional anrino acid residues interacting with the bound subsrate. and used site-directed mutagenesis to assess the contribution of individual residues for substrate ,/ inhibitor binding and enzymatic activity of GCpII. we prepared and characterized 12 GcpJ' mutants targeting the amino acids in the vicinity of substrate./inhibitor binding pockets. The experimental results suggest that residues (especiaily Arg210) in the sť site are critical for substrate./inhibitor binding, whereas the residues forming the sl pocket niight be more important for the .fine-tuning, of GCptr substrate specificity and appear to be relevant for substrate turnover and may play a role in the enzyme's mechanism of action. Even though the QIVýMM calculations of the NAAG binding mode in the GCPII active site enabled us to predict the structure and enzyme-substrate interactions in the sl binding site, the complete..