In cells and organelles transporters are responsible for translocation of amino acids, sugars and nucleotides among others. In the central nervous system (CNS), amino acid transporters can function as neurotransmitter transporters and nutrient sensors. The Solute carrier (SLC) superfamily is the largest family of transporters with 395 members divided in 52 families. The system A and system N amino acid transporter family, SLC38, consists of 11 members, SNAT1-11 (SLC38A1-11). The members are expressed in the brain, exclusively in neurons or astrocytes and some in both. Amino acid signaling is mainly regulated via two pathways, the amino acid responsive (AAR) pathway and the mechanistic/mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) pathway. These pathways regulate the protein synthesis in opposite directions depending on the amino acid availability. SLC38 members along with other SLCs have been identified to participate in these pathways. In paper I, the regulation of SLC genes after complete amino acid starvation in mouse hypothalamic cells have been studied with microarray and we found that 47 SLC genes were significantly altered at five hours of starvation. Interestingly, we found that Slc38a1 and Slc38a7 were upregulated along with the known starvation responding gene, Slc38a2. A complementary starvation study for the SLC38 genes was performed using primary mouse embryonic cortex cells. We found that Slc38a1, Slc38a2, Slc38a5, Slc38a6 and Slc38a8 were upregulated while Slc38a3, Slc38a7 and Slc38a11 were downregulated. Three members from the SLC38 family, SNAT8 (paper IV), SNAT9 (paper III) and SNAT10 (paper II) have been histologically characterized in mouse brain and all these transporters are exclusively neuronal. SNAT8 and SNAT10 were also functionally characterized and shown to be transporters for alanine and glutamine among others. SNAT8 was shown to mediate sodium dependent transport and was classified to system A. SNAT10 was shown to be a sodium independent bidirectional transporter and displayed characteristics for system A and N. SNAT9 is a lysosomal component of the Ragulator-Rag complex which senses amino acid availability and activates mTORC1. In paper III we also found that Slc38a9 gene expression was upregulated following starvation and downregulated following high-fat diet in mouse brain.

Enzymes are ubiquitous in biological systems. They catalyze chemical reactions and are involved in many biochemical processes. The enzyme of interest is Pseudomonas aeruginosa D-arginine dehydrogenase (PaDADH). This flavin-dependent enzyme is composed of approximately 375 amino acid residues and has a broad substrate specificity with D-amino acids. A water recognition motif, observed in roughly 1200 non-redundant protein data bank (PDB) structures, was revealed to be embedded near the active site of PaDADH. This motif coincides with the conformational changes of the enzyme’s gated mechanism. Molecular dynamics simulations were carried out to study the gated properties and structural characteristics of PaDADH in solution. Single amino acid mutations were undertaken to further understand the dynamics of the gated mechanism of this enzyme. In addition, pKa,shift analyses were evaluated to probe for the basic catalytic amino acid residue that is suggested to trigger the catalytic mechanism of PaDADH.

Thesis advisor: Abhishek Chatterjee / The emergence of genetic code expansion (GCE) technology, which enables sitespecific incorporation of unnatural amino acids (UAAs) into proteins, has facilitated powerful new ways to probe and engineer protein structure and function. Using engineered orthogonal tRNA/aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase (aaRS) pairs that suppress repurposed nonsense codons, a variety of structurally diverse UAAs have been incorporated into proteins in living cells. This technology offers tremendous potential for deciphering the complex biology of eukaryotes, but its scope in eukaryotic systems remains restricted due to several technical limitations. For example, development of the engineered tRNA/aaRS pairs for eukaryotic GCE traditionally relied on a eukaryotic cell-based directed evolution system, which are significantly less efficient relative to bacteria-based engineering platforms. The work described in this thesis establishes a new paradigm in GCE through the development of a novel class of universal tRNA/aaRS pairs, which can be used for ncAA incorporation in both E. coli and eukaryotes. We achieve this by developing engineered strains of E. coli, where one of its endogenous tRNA/aaRS pair is functionally replaced with an evolutionarily distant counterpart. The liberated pair can then be used for GCE in the resulting altered translational machinery (ATM) strain, as well as any eukaryote. Using this strategy, we have been able to genetically encode new bioconjugation chemistries, post-translational modifications, and facilitate the incorporation of multiple, distinct ncAAs into a single protein. The ATM technology holds enormous promise for significantly expanding the scope of the GCE technology in both bacteria and eukaryotes. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Chemistry.

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This thesis discusses the issue of predicting the effect of amino acid substitutions on protein function using MAPP method. This method requires the multiple sequence alignment and phylogenetic tree constructed by third-party tools. Main goal of this thesis is to find the combination of suitable tools and their parameters to generate the inputs of MAPP method on the basis of analysis on one massively mutated protein. Then, the MAPP method is tested with chosen combination of parameters and tools on two large independent datasets and consequently is compared with the other tools focused on prediction of the effect of mutations. Apart from this the web interface for the MAPP method was created. This interface simplifies the use of the method since the user need not to install any tools or set any parameters.

Soils contain highly diverse consortia of bacteria making them very attractive starting points for both culture-dependent and metagenomic discovery efforts. The present diploma thesis analyses the composition of the microbial community from pharmaceutically polluted soil, with the employment of next-generation Illumina sequencing of 16S rDNA region. This analysis revealed high complexity of the soil microbial environment and confirmed that anthropogenic activity (represented by production of beta- lactam antibiotics) influences the variability and abundance of the species, yet without reducing the microbial diversity. In the second part of the thesis, isolation and heterologous expression of a novel gene encoding alpha-amino acid ester hydrolase (AEH) from a cultivable soil microorganism B. cereus is described. AEHs possess industrial potential for biocatalytic synthesis of semi-synthetic beta-lactam antibiotics, which are presently of great clinical importance. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

This thesis set out to explore the conformational properties of short designed peptide sequences, in which transitions between structural states may be anticipated. The use of conformationally constrained residues like α-aminoisobutyric acid (Aib) and D-proline (DPro) permits the design of model sequences for structural studies. The principle of imposing conformational constraints by multiple substitutions at backbone atoms in aminoacid residues may also be extended to the higher homologs of α-amino acids, namely β and residues. The experimental results presented in this thesis also examine the potential of using cross-strand interactions between aromatic residues as a probe of structure in designed peptide β-hairpins. Chapter 1 provides a very brief introduction to the necessary background on which the experimental studies in this thesis are based. Chapter 2 describes studies aimed at establishing chain length effects on helix-hairpin conformational distributions in short synthetic sequences, containing centrally positioned Aib-DAla and Aib-Aib segments.The Aib-DAla dipeptide segment has a tendency to form both type-I'/III' and type-I/III β-turns. The occurrence of prime turns facilitates the formation of β-hairpin conformations, while type-I/III turns can nucleate helix formation. The octapeptide Boc-Leu-Phe-Val-Aib-DAla-Leu-Phe-Val-OMe (1) has been previously shown to form a β-hairpin in the crystalline state and in solution. The effects of sequence truncation have been examined using the model peptides Boc-Phe-Val-Aib-Xxx-Leu-Phe-NHMe (2, 6), Boc-Val-Aib-Xxx-Leu-NHMe (3, 7) and Boc-Aib-Xxx-NHMe (4, 8), where Xxx = DAla, Aib. For peptides with central Aib-Aib segments, Boc-Phe-Val-Aib-Aib-Leu-Phe-NHMe (6), Boc-Val-Aib-Aib-Leu-NHMe (7) and Boc-Aib-Aib-NHMe (8) local helical conformations have been established by NMR studies in both hydrogen bonding (CD3OH) and non-hydrogen bonding (CDCl3) solvents. In contrast, the corresponding hexapeptide Boc-Phe-Val-Aib-DAla-Leu-Phe-Val-NHMe (2) favors helical conformations in CDCl3 and β-hairpin conformations in CD3OH. β-Turn conformations (type-I /III) stabilized by intramolecular 4 1 hydrogen bonds are observed for the peptide Boc-Aib-DAla-NHMe (4) and Boc-Aib-Aib-NHMe (8) in crystals. The tetrapeptide Boc-Val-Aib-Aib-Leu-NHMe (7) adopts an incipient 310-helical conformation stabilized by three 4 1 hydrogen bonds. The peptide Boc-Val-Aib-DAla- Leu-NHMe (3) adopts a novel -turn conformation, stabilized by three intramolecular hydrogen bonds (two 4 1 and one 5 1). The Aib-DAla segment adopts a type-I' β-turn conformation. The observation of the NOE Val(1) NH HNCH3 (5), in CD3OH, suggests that the solid state conformation of peptide 3 is maintained in methanol solutions. Peptide hairpins provide an ideal scaffold for exploring cross-strand interactions between residues on facing antiparallel strands. Chapter 3 reports studies directed towards probing, aromatic interactions between facing Phe residues, positioned at the non-hydrogen bonding positions in designed octapeptide β-hairpins. The studies described in this Chapter employ ring current shifted aromatic proton resonances as a means of probing aromatic ring orientations. Crystal structures of eight peptide -hairpins with the sequence Boc-Leu-Phe-Val-Xxx-Yyy-Leu-Phe-Val-OMe revealed that the Phe(2) and Phe(7) aromatic rings are in close spatial proximity, with a centroid-centroid distance (Rcen) of 4.4Å to 5.4Å between the two phenyl rings. Proton NMR spectra in chloroform and methanol solutions reveal a significant upfield shift of the Phe(7) C , ′ H2 protons (6.65 ppm to 7.04 ppm). Specific assignments of the aromatic protons have been carried out in the peptide Boc-Leu-Phe-Val-DPro-LPro-Leu-Phe-Val-OMe (6). The anticipated ring current shifts have been estimated from the aromatic ring geometries observed in crystals for all eight peptides. Only one of the C , ′ H proton lies in the shielding zone, with rapid ring flipping, resulting in averaging between the two extreme chemical shifts. An approximate estimate of the population of conformations which resemble crystal state orientations may be obtained. Key nuclear Overhauser effects (NOEs) between facing Phe sidechains provide support for close similarity between the solid state and solution conformations. Temperature dependence of aromatic ring proton chemical shifts and line widths for peptide 6 (Boc-Leu-Phe-Val-DPro-LPro-Leu-Phe-Val-OMe) and the control peptide Boc-Leu-Val-Val-DPro-Gly-Leu-Phe-Val-OMe establish an enhanced barrier to ring flipping, when the two Phe rings are in proximity. Modeling studies suggest that small, conformational adjustments about the C -C ( 1), and C -C ( 2) bonds of the Phe residues may be required in order to permit unhindered, uncorrelated flipping of both the Phe rings. The maintenance of specific aromatic ring orientations in organic solvents provides evidence for significant stabilizing interactions. Earlier studies from this laboratory established that a centrally positioned DPro-LPro-DAla segment could induce hairpin formation in nonapeptide sequences, facilitated by a three residue loop segment. The DAla residue at position 6 in the nonapeptide Boc-Leu-Phe-Val-DPro-LPro-DAla-Leu-Phe-Val-OMe has been shown to adopt a left handed helical (αL) conformation. The studies described in Chapter 4, examine the effects of aminoacid replacements at positions 5 and 6. NMR studies on eight nonapeptides, with the general sequence Boc-Leu-Phe-Val-DPro-Xxx-Yyy-Leu-Phe-Val-OMe are described. In the case of peptides with a central DPro-LPro-Yyy sequence, two kinds of hairpin conformations are formed in solution. These are; i) β-hairpin structures with a central three residue loop, resulting in registered antiparallel tripeptide strands, and ii) a slipped hairpin structure, nucleated by a central DPro-LPro type-II β-turn, with residue 6 being incorporated into the C-terminal strand. The three residue loop β-hairpins are favored for DAla(6) and Aib(6), while the LAla(6) peptide favors a “slipped” hairpin structure. Replacement of the Pro(5) residue by LAla results in a reduced population of three residue hairpins in the nonapeptide with the DPro-LAla-DAla segment. Replacement of Pro(5) by Aib, abolished hairpin formation. Aromatic proton chemical shifts provide a convenient diagnostic for the presence of three residue loop hairpin conformations in these nonapeptides. A great deal of current interest has focused on the conformations of peptides incorporating β and γ aminoacid residues. Earlier studies from this laboratory have focused on the conformational properties of the β,β -disubstituted γ residue gabapentin (1-aminomethylcyclohexane acetic acid). Subsequent work with the related β aminoacid β3,3Ac6c (1-aminocyclohexaneacetic acid) revealed that intramolecularly hydrogen bonded conformations are infrequently observed in short peptides. The studies described in Chapter 5, examine the conformational properties for model peptides containing the isomeric β-aminoacid, β2,2Ac6c (1-aminomethylcyclohexane-1-carboxylic acid). The effect of gem dialkyl substituents on the backbone conformations of amino acid residues in peptides, has been investigated using four model peptides, Boc-Xxx-2,2Ac6c-NHMe [Xxx = Leu (1), Phe(2)] and Boc-Xxx- 3,3Ac6c-NHMe [Xxx = Leu (3), Phe(4)]. Tetrasubstituted carbon atoms restrict the ranges of stereochemically allowed a C11 helical turn, which is a backbone expanded analog of the type III -turn in sequences. The crystal structure of the peptide Boc-Phe- 3,3Ac6c-NHMe (4) establishes a the asymmetric unit adopt backbone torsion angles of opposite signs. In one of the molecules, the Phe residue adopts an unfavourable backbone conformation, with the energetic penalty being offset by favourable aromatic interactions between proximal molecules in the crystal. NMR studies provide evidence for the maintenance of folded structures in solution, in these hybrid sequences. The result presented in this thesis suggests that it should be possible to construct designed synthetic peptides, which can undergo transitions between two distinct and energetically favourable conformational states. The ability to design peptide sequences that can undergo switching between helical and β-hairpin states, or between hairpin structures with variations in connecting loop length may prove valuable in providing further insights into the factors influencing conformational dynamics.

JMJD6 or PSR (phosphatidyl serine receptor) was initially proposed to be a membrane receptor involved in apoptotic cell clearance by recognition of apoptotic cells. However, sequence analyses implied the presence of a jelly roll or double stranded beta helix (DSBH) structural domain in PSR/JMJD6 and similarity with JmjC family of enzymes which are involved in chromatin regulation. Subsequently, PSR was renamed as JMJD6 and was reported to be a histone arginine demethylase. Previous work from our group has shown that JMJD6 is a lysine hydroxylase that interacts with nuclear proteins including CROP and U2AF65 which are involved in mRNA splicing. Peptide screening and cell based assays led to the conclusion that JMJD6 catalyses lysine hydroxylation of splicing regulatory proteins containing arginine serine rich domains (SR proteins) including U2AF65 and Luc7like-2. Studies were carried out to investigate the putative arginine demethylation activity of JMJD6 using MS analysis of histone peptides and luminescence-based assays. New substrates from SR proteins were identified by immunoprecipitation of JMJD6 expressed in human cell lines followed by LC-MS/MS analysis and MALDI-MS based assays of synthesised peptide substrates. Work then focussed on studying the mechanism of lysyl-hydroxylation from substrate and enzyme perspective. A crystal structure of seleno-methionine labelled JMJD6 was obtained and it provided insights into the JMJD6 active site and its substrate interactions. Based on this data, single point variants of JMJD6 were prepared and their substrate binding properties were studied by MALDI-MS and 2OG turnover assays. Collagen lysyl-hydroxylases are also 2OG dependent oxygenases. Efforts to investigate the stereochemistry of JMJD6 catalysed hydroxylation, employing NMR and amino acid analyses were carried out. These studies led to the interesting finding that the C-5 stereochemistry of hydroxylysine in LUC7L2 peptide is opposite (2S,5S-hydroxylysine) to that present in collagen (2S,5R-hydroxylysine). It was found that JMJD6 undergoes autocatalytic self-hydroxylation. Lysine residues from both recombinant JMJD6 and that from HeLa cells at endogenous level were identified to be hydroxylated by amino acid and LC-MS/MS analyses. JMJD6 has a strong tendency to form aggregates and gel electrophoresis always reveals multimeric bands of various JMJD6 constructs. Characterisation and identification of oligomeric states of JMJD6 was carried out using Electron Microscopy. Studies were initiated to identify possible inhibitors by screening a set of 2OG analogues. The results from this preliminary inhibition studies have identified the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle intermediates, succinate and fumarate to be JMJD6 inhibitors and form a basis of further studies aimed at identifying selective inhibitors.

This thesis is focused on predicting the impact of amino acid substitution on protein stability. The main goal is to create a consensual predictor that uses the outputs of chosen existing tools in order to improve accuracy of prediction. The optimal consensus of theese tools was designed using evolution strategies in three variants: 1/5 success rule, self-adaptation variant and the CMA-ES method. Then, the quality of calculated weight vectors was tested on the independent dataset. Although the highest prediction performance was attained by self-adaptation method, the differences between all three variants were not significant. Compared to the individual tools, the predictions provided by consensual methods were generally more accurate - the self-adaptation variant imporved the Pearson's corelation coeficient of the predictions by 0,057 on the training dataset. On the testing dataset, the improvement of designed method was smaller (0,040). Relatively low improvement of prediction performance (both on the training and the testing dataset) were caused by the fact, that for some records of testing dataset, some individual tools vere not able to provide their results. When omitting these records, consensual method improved the Pearson's corelations coeficient by 0,118.

This thesis discusses the issue of predicting of the effect of amino acid substitutions on protein funkcion, based on phylogenetic analysis method, inspired by tool MAPP. Significant number of genetic diseases is caused by nonsynonymous SNPs manifested as single point mutations on the protein level. The ability to identify deleterious substitutions could be useful for protein engineering to test whether the proposed mutations do not damage protein function same as for targeting disease causing harmful mutations. However the experimental validation is costly and the need of predictive computation methods has risen. This thesis describes desing and implementation of a new in silico predictor based on the principles of evolutionary analysis and dissimilarity between original and substituting amino acid physico-chemical properties. Developed algorithm was tested on four datasets with 74,192 mutations from 16,256 sequences in total. The predictor yields up to 72 % accuracy and in the comparison with the most existing tools, it is substantially less time consuming. In order to achieve the highest possible efficiency, the optimization process was focused on selection of the most suitable (a) third-party software for calculation of a multiple sequence alignment, (b) overall decision threshold and (c) a set of physico-chemical properties.