Recruitment of a Middling Promiscuous Enzyme Drives Adaptive Metabolic Evolution in Escherichia coli.

A key step in metabolic pathway evolution is the recruitment of promiscuous enzymes to perform new functions. Despite the recognition that promiscuity is widespread in biology, factors dictating the preferential recruitment of one promiscuous enzyme over other candidates are unknown. Escherichia coli contains four sugar kinases that are candidates for recruitment when the native glucokinase machinery is deleted-allokinase (AlsK), manno(fructo)kinase (Mak), N-acetylmannosamine kinase (NanK), and N-acetylglucosamine kinase (NagK). The catalytic efficiencies of these enzymes are 103- to 105-fold lower than native glucokinases, ranging from 2,400 M-1 s-1 for the most active candidate, NagK, to 15 M-1 s-1 for the least active candidate, AlsK. To investigate the relationship between catalytic activities of promiscuous enzymes and their recruitment, we performed adaptive evolution of a glucokinase-deficient E. coli strain to restore glycolytic metabolism. We observed preferential recruitment of NanK via a trajectory involving early mutations that facilitate glucose uptake and amplify nanK transcription, followed by nonsynonymous substitutions in NanK that enhance the enzyme's promiscuous glucokinase activity. These substitutions reduced the native activity of NanK and reduced organismal fitness during growth on an N-acetylated carbon source, indicating that enzyme recruitment comes at a cost for growth on other substrates. Notably, the two most active candidates, NagK and Mak, were not recruited, suggesting that catalytic activity alone does not dictate evolutionary outcomes. The results highlight our lack of knowledge regarding biological drivers of enzyme recruitment and emphasize the need for a systems-wide approach to identify factors facilitating or constraining this important adaptive process.

SNAP/CLIP-Tags and Strain-Promoted Azide-Alkyne Cycloaddition (SPAAC)/Inverse Electron Demand Diels-Alder (IEDDA) for Intracellular Orthogonal/Bioorthogonal Labeling.

Labeling a protein of interest (POI) with a fluorescent reporter is a powerful strategy for studying protein structures and dynamics in their native environments. Compared to fluorescent proteins, synthetic dyes provide more choices in photophysical or photochemical attributes to microscopic characterizations. The specificity of bioorthogonal reactions in conjunction with the fidelity of subcellular destinations of genetically encoded protein tags can be employed to label POIs in live and fixed cells in a two-step process. In the present study the orthogonality of the strain-promoted azide-alkyne cycloaddition (SPAAC) and the inverse electron demand Diels-Alder (IEDDA) reaction is corroborated in concurrent labeling of two different intracellular targets. An azido group and a strained alkene are first installed at specific subcellular locations via orthogonal enzymatic reactions of the genetically incorporated SNAP- and CLIP-tags. The subsequent bioorthogonal reactions with fluorophores carrying matching reactive functionalities result in simultaneous dual labeling. The two-step "orthogonal-bioorthogonal" labeling process would increase the utilities of SNAP/CLIP-tags and, as a consequence, would expand the capability of decorating biological specimens with functionalities beyond fluorophores to potentially include spin labels, radioactive tracers, or catalysts.

Propagation of an Aß Dodecamer Strain Involves a Three-Step Mechanism and a Key Intermediate.

Proteinaceous deposits composed of fibrillar amyloid-ß (Aß) are the primary neuropathological hallmarks in Alzheimer disease (AD) brains. The nucleation-dependent aggregation of Aß is a stochastic process with frequently observed heterogeneity in aggregate size, structure, and conformation that manifests in fibril polymorphism. Emerging evidence indicates that polymorphic variations in Aß fibrils contribute to phenotypic diversity and the rate of disease progression in AD. We recently demonstrated that a dodecamer strain derived from synthetic Aß42 propagates to morphologically distinct fibrils and selectively induces cerebral amyloid angiopathy phenotype in transgenic mice. This report supports the growing contention that stable oligomer strains can influence phenotypic outcomes by faithful propagation of their structures. Although we determined the mechanism of dodecamer propagation on a mesoscopic scale, the molecular details of the microscopic reactions remained unknown. Here, we have dissected and evaluated individually the kinetics of macroscopic phases in aggregation to gain insight into the process of strain propagation. The bulk rates determined experimentally in each phase were used to build an ensemble kinetic simulation model, which confirmed our observation that dodecamer seeds initially grow by monomer addition toward the formation of a key intermediate. This is followed by conversion of the intermediate to fibrils by oligomer elongation and association mechanisms. Overall, this report reveals important insights into the molecular details of oligomer strain propagation involved in AD pathology.