Structural And Functional Character Ization Of Deep-sea Thermophilic Bacteriophage GVE2 HNH Endonuclease

Most HNH endonucleases that can nick double-stranded DNA sites ranging from 3 to 5 bp.Most HNH endonucleases adopt a similar structure,comprising two antiparallel ?-strands,an a-helix and a divalent metal ion bound in the active center.HNH endonucleases in bacteriophages play a variety of roles in the phage lifecycle as key components of phage DNA packaging machines.The deep-sea thermophilic bacteriophage Geobacillus virus E2(GVE2)encodes an HNH endonuclease(GVE2 HNHE).Here,the crystal structure of GVE2 HNHE is reported.This is the first structural study of a thermostable HNH endonuclease from a thermophilic bacteriophage.Structural comparison reveals that GVE2 HNHE possesses a typical ???-metal fold and Zn-finger motif similar to those of HNH endonucleases from other bacteriophages,apart from containing an extra a-helix,suggesting conservation of these enzymes among bacteriophages.Biochemical analysis suggests that the alanine substitutions of the conserved residues(H93,N109 and H118)in the HNH motif of GVE2 HNHE abolished 90%,80%and 60%of nicking activity,respectively.Compared to the wild type enzyme,the H93A mutant displayed almost the same conformation while the N108A and HI 18A mutants had different conformations.In addition,the wild type enzyme was more thermostable than the mutants.In the presence of Mn2+ or Zn2+,the wild type enzyme displayed distinct DNA nicking patterns.However,high Mn2+ concentrations were needed for the N109A and H118A mutants to nick DNA while Zn2+ inactivated their nicking activity.Importantly,GVE2 HNHE displays different conformational structure from other HNH endonucleases,which may be the basis for the enzyme to nick DNA at high temperature.In this paper,two high-resolution three-dimensional structures of deep-sea thermophilic phage GVE2 HNH endonuclease were analyzed by structural biology and related biochemical experiments.The physiological and biochemical characteristics of endonuclease were verified by subsequent biochemical experiments.Furthermore,our study provided a clue for the role of the HNH endonuclease in the life cycle of bacteriophage GVE2.