A sensitive gel-based method combining distinct cyclophellitol-based probes for the identification of acid/base residues in human retaining β-glucosidases.

Retaining β-exoglucosidases operate by a mechanism in which the key amino acids driving the glycosidic bond hydrolysis act as catalytic acid/base and nucleophile. Recently we designed two distinct classes of fluorescent cyclophellitol-type activity-based probes (ABPs) that exploit this mechanism to covalently modify the nucleophile of retaining β-glucosidases. Whereas β-epoxide ABPs require a protonated acid/base for irreversible inhibition of retaining β-glucosidases, β-aziridine ABPs do not. Here we describe a novel sensitive method to identify both catalytic residues of retaining β-glucosidases by the combined use of cyclophellitol β-epoxide- and β-aziridine ABPs. In this approach putative catalytic residues are first substituted to noncarboxylic amino acids such as glycine or glutamine through site-directed mutagenesis. Next, the acid/base and nucleophile can be identified via classical sodium azide-mediated rescue of mutants thereof. Selective labeling with fluorescent β-aziridine but not β-epoxide ABPs identifies the acid/base residue in mutagenized enzyme, as only the β-aziridine ABP can bind in its absence. The Absence of the nucleophile abolishes any ABP labeling. We validated the method by using the retaining β-glucosidase GBA (CAZy glycosylhydrolase family GH30) and then applied it to non-homologous (putative) retaining β-glucosidases categorized in GH1 and GH116: GBA2, GBA3, and LPH. The described method is highly sensitive, requiring only femtomoles (nanograms) of ABP-labeled enzymes.