The role of methionine-192 of the chymotrypsin active site in the binding and catalysis of mono(amino acid) and peptide substrates.

We find that specific oxidation for the Met-192 residue in delta-chymotrypsin to methionine sulfoxide results in a twofold increase in Km(app) and unchanged kcat in the hydrolysis of N-acetyl mono(amino acid) amide substrates. However, the catalyzed hydrolyses of N-acetyl dipeptide amide substrates by (methionine sulfoxide)-192-delta-chymotrypsin (MS-delta-Cht) shows a four- to fivefold decrease in kcat and unchanged Km(app) with respect to delta-chymotrypsin. Hydrolysis of alpha-casein by MS-delta-Cht shows a similar 4.2-fold decrease in kcat. These results imply that the Met-192 acts differently with substrates that bind only in the primary, S1, binding site (i.e., AcPheNH2) from those that bind to more extended regions of the enzyme active site. In the binding of c+AcPheNH2 and AcTrpNH2, the results support a mechanism in which the Met-192 acts to slow the rate of sustrate dissociation from the Michaelis complex to free substrate and enzyme. This is in agreement with the x-ray crystallographic structure of dioxane inhibited alpha-chymotrypsin (Steitz, T., et al. (1969), J. Mol. Biol. 46, 337). However, this mechanism is not apparent when peptide and protein substrates bind. The decrease in kcat on Met-192 modification of approximately fivefold in the hydrolysis of polypeptide substrates show a small, but significant, catalytic contribution of the Met-192 toward the lowering of the energy of activation polypeptide substrate hydrolysis by chymotrypsin. This may support the crystallographic model of Fersht et al. (Fersht, A., et al. (1973), Biochemistry 12, 2035) in which it is proposed that the Met-192 participates in the distortion of bound polypeptide substrates toward the reaction transition-state configuration and, thus, plays a role in catalysis. However, if this mechanism occurs, the effect is small, only contributing about 1 kcal/mol to the lowering of the reaction activation energy.