Mutagenesis of residue 157 in the active site of human glyoxalase I.

Met-157 in the active site of human glyoxalase I was changed by site-directed mutagenesis into alanine, glutamine or histidine in order to evaluate its possible role in catalysis. The glyoxalase I mutants were expressed in Escherichia coli and purified on an S-hexylglutathione affinity gel. The physicochemical properties of the mutant proteins were similar to those of the wild-type enzyme. The glutamine mutant exhibited the same high specific activity as wild-type glyoxalase I, whereas the alanine and histidine mutants had approx. 20% of wild-type activity. The kcat/Km values of the mutant glyoxalase I determined with the hemithioacetal adduct of glutathione and methylglyoxal were reduced to between 10 and 40% of the wild-type value. This reduction was due to lower kcat values for the alanine and histidine mutants and a twofold increase in the Km value for the glutamine mutant. With the hemithioacetal of glutathione and phenylglyoxal, the kinetic parameters of the mutants were also of the same magnitude as those of wild-type glyoxalase I. Studies with the competitive inhibitors S-hexyl- and S-benzyl-glutathione revealed that the affinity was reduced to 7-11% of the wild-type affinity for the glutamine and alanine mutants and to 30-40% for the histidine mutant, as measured by a comparison of Ki values. The results show that Met-157 has no direct role in catalysis, but is rather involved in forming the substrate-binding site of human glyoxalase I. The high activity of the glutamine mutant suggests that a structurally equivalent glutamine residue in the N-terminal half of Saccharomyces cerevisiae glyoxalase I may be part of a catalytically competent active site.