Journal of Biological Chemistry
Volume 280, Issue 34, 26 August 2005, Pages 30550-30556
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Protein Structure and Folding
Disruption of the Coenzyme Binding Site and Dimer Interface Revealed in the Crystal Structure of Mitochondrial Aldehyde Dehydrogenase “Asian” Variant*

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Mitochondrial aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH2) is the major enzyme that oxidizes ethanol-derived acetaldehyde. A nearly inactive form of the enzyme, ALDH2*2, is found in about 40% of the East Asian population. This variant enzyme is defined by a glutamate to lysine substitution at residue 487 located within the oligomerization domain. ALDH2*2 has an increased Km for its coenzyme, NAD+, and a decreased kcat, which lead to low activity in vivo. Here we report the 2.1 Å crystal structure of ALDH2*2. The structure shows a large disordered region located at the dimer interface that includes much of the coenzyme binding cleft and a loop of residues that form the base of the active site. As a consequence of these structural changes, the variant enzyme exhibits rigid body rotations of its catalytic and coenzyme-binding domains relative to the oligomerization domain. These structural perturbations are the direct result of the inability of lysine 487 to form important stabilizing hydrogen bonds with arginines 264 and 475. Thus, the elevated Km for coenzyme exhibited by this variant probably reflects the energetic penalty for reestablishing this site for productive coenzyme binding, whereas the structural alterations near the active site are consistent with the lowered Vmax.

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The atomic coordinates and structure factors (code 1ZUM) have been deposited in the Protein Data Bank, Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ (http://www.rcsb.org/).

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This work was supported by National Institutes of Health Grant R01 AA 11982. Use of the Argonne National Laboratory Structural Biology Center beamlines at the Advanced Photon Source was supported by the United States Department of Energy, Office of Energy Research, under Contract W-31-109-ENG-38. The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked “advertisement” in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.