Motifs in the C-terminal region of the Penicillium chrysogenum ACV synthetase are essential for valine epimerization and processivity of tripeptide formation.

The first step in the penicillin biosynthetic pathway is the non-ribosomal condensation of L-α-aminoadipic acid, L-cysteine and L-valine into the tripeptide δ-(L-α-aminoadipyl)-L-cysteinyl-D-valine (ACV). This reaction is catalysed by the multienzyme ACV synthetase (ACVS), which is encoded in the filamentous fungus Penicillium chrysogenum by the pcbAB gene. This enzyme contains at least ten catalytic domains. The precise role of the C-terminal domain of this multidomain NRPS still remains obscure. The C-terminal region of ACVS bears the epimerase and the thioesterase domains and may be involved in the epimerization of LLL-ACV to LLD-ACV and in the hydrolysis of the thioester bond. In this work, the conserved motifs (3371)EGHGRE(3376) (located in the putative epimerase domain) and (3629)GWSFG(3633) (located in the thioesterase domain) were changed by site-directed-mutagenesis to LGFGLL and GWAFG, respectively. In addition, the whole thioesterase domain (230 amino acids) and the different parts of this domain were deleted. The activity of these mutant enzymes was assessed in vivo by two different procedures: i) through the quantification of bisACV produced by the fungus and ii) by quantifying the benzylpenicillin production using tailored strains of P. chrysogenum, which lack the pcbAB gene, as host strains. All indicated mutant enzymes showed lower or null activity than the control strain confirming that E3371, H3373, R3375 and E3376 belong to the epimerase active centre. Different fragments included in the C-terminal region of ACVS control thioester hydrolysis. Overexpression of the sequence encoding the ACVS integrated thioesterase domain as a separate (stand-alone) transcriptional unit complemented mutants lacking the integrated thioesterase domain, although with low ACV releasing activity, suggesting that the stand-alone thioesterease interacts with the other ACVS domains.