Characterization of active/binding site residues of peptidyl-tRNA hydrolase using biophysical and computational studies.

Abstract All mRNAs cannot be translated into full-length proteins due to ribosome-stalling that leads to release of peptidyl-tRNA which can be lethal for bacterial survival. The enzyme peptidyl-tRNA hydrolase (PtH) hydrolyses the ester bond between nascent peptide and tRNA of peptidyl-tRNA and rescues the cells from toxicity. PtH is an essential enzyme in bacteria and inhibiting this crucial enzyme can serve to combat bacterial diseases. But due to lack of understanding about the catalytic mechanism of PtH, its inhibitors have not been developed. In this work, we have carried out the binding studies of M. tuberculosis and E. coli PtH with the peptidyl-tRNA analogue (puromycin) using ITC, FTIR, CD experiments followed by docking and MD simulations to identify the potential active site residues that would help to design PtH inhibitors. Binding studies of puromycin with both PtH by ITC experiments demonstrate similar thermodynamic parameters and three fold difference in their KD. CD and FTIR studies detected changes in secondary structure composition of PtH in the presence of puromycin with different degree of perturbation. Though interactions with puromycin are conserved in both proteins, modelling studies revealed that water mediated interactions in M. tb-PtH resulting in higher affinity to puromycin.