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Insights into activity and inhibition from the crystal structure of human O-GlcNAcase

Nature Chemical Biology volume 13, pages 613–615 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

O-GlcNAc hydrolase (OGA) catalyzes removal of βα-linked N-acetyl-D-glucosamine from serine and threonine residues. We report crystal structures of Homo sapiens OGA catalytic domain in apo and inhibited states, revealing a flexible dimer that displays three unique conformations and is characterized by subdomain α-helix swapping. These results identify new structural features of the substrate-binding groove adjacent to the catalytic site and open new opportunities for structural, mechanistic and drug discovery activities.

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Figure 1: Three dimensional structure of hOGA.
Figure 2: Binding site for inhibitors and substrates of hOGA.

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Protein Data Bank

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NCBI Reference Sequence

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. Duffy, J. Schachter, J. Marcus, H. Su, B. Hayes, K. Babaoglu, D. Vocadlo, E. McEachern and G. McGaughey for valuable discussions, and M.R. Heo for performing size-exclusion chromatography and dynamic light scattering analysis. X-ray diffraction data were collected at beamline 17-ID in the facilities of the Industrial Macromolecular Crystallography Association Collaborative Access Team (IMCA-CAT) at the Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratories. Use of the IMCA-CAT beamline was supported by the companies of the Industrial Macromolecular Crystallography Association through a contract with Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute. Use of the Advance Photon Source was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.

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Author notes

  1. Nathaniel L Elsen & Kevin J Lumb

    Present address: Present addresses: High Throughput Screening, AbbVie Inc., North Chicago, Illinois, USA (N.L.E.); Lead Discovery, Discovery Sciences, Janssen R&D LLC, Spring House, Pennsylvania, USA (K.J.L.).,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Screening and Protein Sciences, MRL, Merck & Co., Inc., West Point, Pennsylvania, USA

    Nathaniel L Elsen, Rachael E Ford, Dawn L Hall, Hari Kandula, Maria Kornienko, Jennifer M Shipman, Sujata Sharma & Kevin J Lumb

  2. Structural Chemistry, MRL, Merck & Co., Inc., West Point, Pennsylvania, USA

    Sangita B Patel, John Reid, Stephen M Soisson & Daniel J Klein

  3. Department of Neurobiology, MRL, Merck & Co., Inc., West Point, Pennsylvania, USA

    Fred Hess

  4. Discovery Chemistry, MRL, Merck & Co., Inc., West Point, Pennsylvania, USA

    Harold Selnick

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  1. Nathaniel L Elsen
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Contributions

D.J.K., N.L.E., K.J.L. and S.M.S. designed the project; D.J.K., N.L.E., S.B.P., J.R., R.E.F., D.L.H., J.M.S., H.K. and M.K. performed experiments; D.J.K., N.L.E., K.J.L., S.S., S.M.S., F.H. and H.S. interpreted experimental results; D.J.K., K.J.L. and N.L.E. prepared the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Daniel J Klein.

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The authors are current or former employees of Merck & Co., Inc. USA and potentially own stock and/or hold stock options in the Company.

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Supplementary Results, Supplementary Tables 1–3 and Supplementary Figures 1–8 (PDF 1713 kb)

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Elsen, N., Patel, S., Ford, R. et al. Insights into activity and inhibition from the crystal structure of human O-GlcNAcase. Nat Chem Biol 13, 613–615 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.2357

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