Crystal structure of hydroxynitrile lyase from Sorghum bicolor in complex with the inhibitor benzoic acid: A novel cyanogenic enzyme

The crystal structure of the hydroxynitrile lyase from Sorghum bicolor (SbHNL) in complex with the inhibitor benzoic acid has been determined at 2.3 A resolution and refined to a crystallographic R-factor of 16.5%. The SbHNL sequence places the enzyme in the α/β hydrolase family where the active site nucleophile is predicted to be organized in a characteristic pentapeptide motif which is part of the active site strand−turn−helix motif. In SbHNL, however, a unique two-amino acid deletion is next to the putative active site Ser158, removing thereby the putative oxyanion hole-forming Tyr residue. The presented X-ray structure shows that the overall folding pattern of SbHNL is similar to that of the closely related wheat serine carboxypeptidase (CPD-WII); however, the deletion in SbHNL is forcing the putative active site residues away from the expected hydrolase binding site toward a small hydrophobic cleft, which also contains the inhibitor benzoic acid, defining thereby a completely different SbHNL active s...