A Molecular Dynamics Investigation of the Thermostability of Cold-Sensitive I707L KlenTaq1 DNA Polymerase and Its Wild-Type Counterpart.

DNA polymerase I from Thermus aquaticus ( Taq DNA polymerase) is useful for polymerase chain reactions because of its exceptional thermostability; however, its activity at low temperatures can cause amplification of unintended products. Mutation of isoleucine 707 to leucine (I707L) slows Taq DNA polymerase at low temperatures, which decreases unwanted amplification due to mispriming. In this work, unrestrained molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were performed on I707L and wild-type (WT) Taq DNA polymerase at 341 and 298 K to determine how the mutation affects the dynamic nature of the protein. The results suggest that I707L Taq DNA polymerase remains relatively immobile at room temperature and becomes more flexible at the higher temperature, while the WT Taq DNA polymerase demonstrates less substantial differences in dynamics at high and low temperatures. These results are in agreement with previous experimental results on the I707L mutant Taq DNA polymerase that show dynamic differences at high and low temperatures. The decreased mobility of the mutant at low temperature suggests that the mutant remains longer in the blocked conformation, and this may lead to reduced activity relative to the WT at 298 K. Principal component analysis revealed that the mutation results in decoupled movements of the Q helix and fingers domain. This decoupled nature of the mutant gives way to an increasingly flexible N-terminal end of the Q helix at 341 K, a characteristic not seen for WT Taq DNA polymerase.

A conservative isoleucine to leucine mutation causes major rearrangements and cold sensitivity in KlenTaq1 DNA polymerase.

Assembly of polymerase chain reactions at room temperature can sometimes lead to low yields or unintentional products due to mispriming. Mutation of isoleucine 707 to leucine in DNA polymerase I from Thermus aquaticus substantially decreases its activity at room temperature without compromising its ability to amplify DNA. To understand why a conservative change to the enzyme over 20 Å from the active site can have a large impact on its activity at low temperature, we solved the X-ray crystal structure of the large (5'-to-3' exonuclease-deleted) fragment of Taq DNA polymerase containing the cold-sensitive mutation in the ternary (E-DNA-ddNTP) and binary (E-DNA) complexes. The I707L KlenTaq1 ternary complex was identical to the wild-type in the closed conformation except for the mutation and a rotamer change in nearby phenylalanine 749, suggesting that the enzyme should remain active. However, soaking out of the nucleotide substrate at low temperature results in an altered binary complex made possible by the rotamer change at F749 near the tip of the polymerase O-helix. Surprisingly, two adenosines in the 5'-template overhang fill the vacated active site by stacking with the primer strand, thereby blocking the active site at low temperature. Replacement of the two overhanging adenosines with pyrimidines substantially increased activity at room temperature by keeping the template overhang out of the active site, confirming the importance of base stacking. These results explain the cold-sensitive phenotype of the I707L mutation in KlenTaq1 and serve as an example of a large conformational change affected by a conservative mutation.