Poster Presentation 21st International Conference on Biological Inorganic Chemistry 2025

Substrate engagement of peptide-modifying radical SAM enzyme, PqqE (#553)

Wen Zhu 1 , Anthony T. Iavarone 2 , Judith P. Klinman 2 3
  1. Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
  2. California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
  3. Department of Chemistry, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

Protein-peptide interactions are critical for the catalytic function of peptide-modifying enzymes.1 PqqE, a radical S-adenosylmethionine (rSAM) enzyme, plays a central role in the biosynthesis of the peptide-derived cofactor pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ) in bacteria.2 It catalyzes the reductive cleavage of SAM to generate a 5′-deoxyadenosyl radical, which initiates a carbon-carbon bond formation on its peptide substrate, PqqA, in the presence of the peptide chaperone, PqqD.3 Despite extensive biochemical studies, the details of the substrate engagement of the enzyme-substrate complex prior to catalysis remain unknown. Here, we present the dynamic interaction model of this quaternary complex using hydrogen-deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (HDX-MS) 4 and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR). Our results reveal that the binding of individual substrate modulates the conformational dynamics of PqqE, and a pronounced substrate-induced conformational rearrangement only emerges when all four components are assembled. These findings highlight the importance of studying protein-peptide interactions in radical SAM enzymes from a dynamic perspective, offering new insights into how substrate engagement governs catalytic activation in this enzyme class.