Статья

Structure of the Brain N-Acetylaspartate Biosynthetic Enzyme NAT8L Revealed by Computer Modeling

I. Polyakov, A. Kniga, B. Grigorenko, A. Nemukhin,
2020

We report the results of computational modeling of a three-dimensional all-atom structure of the membrane-associated protein encoded by the NAT8L gene, aspartate N-acetyltransferase, which is essential for brain synthesis of N-acetyl-l-aspartate (NAA). The lack of experimentally derived three-dimensional structures of NAT8L poses one of the obstacles in studies of the mechanism of NAA formation and understanding the precise role of NAA in neurological disorders. We apply a computational protocol employing the contact map prediction, ab initio folding, homology modeling, and refinement to obtain a structure of NAT8L with the aspartate and acetyl coenzyme A cofactors in the protein molecule. To verify the computational protocol, we check its predictive power by reproducing the crystal structure of a related N-acetyltransferase domain, specifically, that from the bacterial N-acetylglutamate synthase. We show that the constructed NAT8L model correlates with structural features of the protein revealed in rare experimental studies. The obtained structure of the enzyme active site with the trapped reactants suggests a mechanism of the acetyl transfer upon NAA formation.

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  • 1. Version of Record от 2020-08-05

Метаданные

Об авторах
  • I. Polyakov
    Lomonosov Moscow State University, Emanuel Institute of Biochemical Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences
  • A. Kniga
    Lomonosov Moscow State University
  • B. Grigorenko
    Lomonosov Moscow State University, Emanuel Institute of Biochemical Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences
  • A. Nemukhin
    Lomonosov Moscow State University, Emanuel Institute of Biochemical Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences
Название журнала
  • ACS Chemical Neuroscience
Том
  • 11
Выпуск
  • 15
Страницы
  • 2296-2302
Финансирующая организация
  • Russian Science Foundation
Номер гранта
  • 18-13-00030
Тип документа
  • journal article
Тип лицензии Creative Commons
  • CC BY
Правовой статус документа
  • Свободная лицензия
Источник
  • scopus