Crystal structures of D-psicose 3-epimerase from Clostridium cellulolyticum H10 and its complex with ketohexose sugars.
Chan, H.C., Zhu, Y., Hu, Y., Ko, T.P., Huang, C.H., Ren, F., Chen, C.C., Ma, Y., Guo, R.T., Sun, Y.(2012) Protein Cell 3: 123-131
- PubMed: 22426981 
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13238-012-2026-5
- Primary Citation of Related Structures:  
3VNI, 3VNJ, 3VNK, 3VNL, 3VNM - PubMed Abstract: 
D-psicose 3-epimerase (DPEase) is demonstrated to be useful in the bioproduction of D-psicose, a rare hexose sugar, from D-fructose, found plenty in nature. Clostridium cellulolyticum H10 has recently been identified as a DPEase that can epimerize D-fructose to yield D-psicose with a much higher conversion rate when compared with the conventionally used DTEase. In this study, the crystal structure of the C. cellulolyticum DPEase was determined. The enzyme assembles into a tetramer and each subunit shows a (β/α)(8) TIM barrel fold with a Mn(2+) metal ion in the active site. Additional crystal structures of the enzyme in complex with substrates/products (D-psicose, D-fructose, D-tagatose and D-sorbose) were also determined. From the complex structures of C. cellulolyticum DPEase with D-psicose and D-fructose, the enzyme has much more interactions with D-psicose than D-fructose by forming more hydrogen bonds between the substrate and the active site residues. Accordingly, based on these ketohexose-bound complex structures, a C3-O3 proton-exchange mechanism for the conversion between D-psicose and D-fructose is proposed here. These results provide a clear idea for the deprotonation/protonation roles of E150 and E244 in catalysis.
Organizational Affiliation: 
Industrial Enzymes National Engineering Laboratory, Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tianjin, 300308, China.