Highly similar sequence and structure yet different biophysical behaviour: A computational study of two triosephosphate isomerases

Homodimeric triosephosphate isomerases (TIM) from Trypanosoma cruzi (TcTIM) and Trypanosoma brucei (TbTIM) have a markedly similar amino acid sequences and three-dimensional structures. However, several of their biophysical parameters, such as their susceptibility to sulfhydryl agents and their reactivation speed after being denatured, have significant differences. The causes of these differences were explored with microsecond-scale molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of three different TIM proteins: TcTIM, TbTIM and a chimeric protein, Mut1. We examined their electrostatic interactions and explored the impact of simulation length on them. The same salt bridge between catalytic residues Lys 14 and Glu 98 was observed in all three proteins but key differences were found in other interactions that the catalytic amino acids form. In particular, a cation-{pi} interaction between catalytic amino acids Lys 14 and His 96, and both a salt bridge and a hydrogen bond between catalytic Glu168 and residue Arg100, were only observed in TcTIM. Furthermore, although TcTIM forms less hydrogen bonds than TbTIM and Mut1, its hydrogen bond network spans almost the entire protein, connecting the residues in both monomers. This work provides new insight on the mechanisms that give rise to the different behaviour of these proteins. The results also show the importance of long simulations.