Suzuki J, Hamu A, Nishiyama M, Horinouchi S, Beppu T
Department of Agricultural Chemistry, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tokyo, Japan.
Protein Eng. 1990 Oct;4(1):69-71. doi: 10.1093/protein/4.1.69.
The functional contributions of amino acid residues Thr218 and Asp304 of chymosin, both of which are highly conserved in the aspartic proteinases, are analysed by means of site-directed mutagenesis. The optimum pH values, milk-clotting (C) and proteolytic (P) activities and kinetic parameters for synthetic oligopeptides as substrates were examined for the mutant enzymes. The mutation Thr218Ser caused a marked increase in the C/P ratio, which seemed to be due to a change in substrate recognition. Although the negative charge of Asp304 had been expected to play a role in lowering the optimum pH values in the aspartic proteinases, this turned out not to be the case in chymosin because both the mutations Asp304Ala and Asp304Glu caused a similar shift of the optimum pH towards the acidic side. In addition, the mutation Lys220Leu, which we generated previously, was found to cause a decrease in the C/P ratio, mainly due to the increase in the proteolytic activity.
