Engineering of Methionine Adenosyltransferase Reveals Key Roles of Electrostatic Interactions in Enhanced Catalytic Activity

As an important dietary supplement, S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) is currently synthesized by methionine adenosyltransferase (MAT) using ATP and methionine as substrates. However, the activity of MAT is severely inhibited by product inhibition, which limits the industrial production of SAM. Here, MAT from Bacteroides fragilis ( Bf MAT), exhibiting relatively low product inhibition and moderate specific activity, was identified by gene mining. Based on molecular docking, residues within 5 Å of ATP in Bf MAT were subjected to mutagenesis for enhanced catalytic activity. Triple variants M3-1 (E42M/E55L/K290I), M3-2 (E42R/E55L/K290I), and M3-3 (E42C/E55L/K290I) with specific activities of 1.83, 1.81, and 1.94 U/mg were obtained, which were 110.5–125.6% higher than that of the wild type (WT). Furthermore, compared with WT, the K m values of M3-1 and M3-3 were decreased by 31.4% and 60.6%, leading to significant improvement in catalytic efficiency ( k cat /K m ) by 322.5% and 681.1%. All triple variants showed shifted optimal pH from 8.0 to 7.5. Moreover, interaction analysis suggests that the enhanced catalytic efficiency may be attributed to the decreased electrostatic interactions between ATP and the mutation sites (E42, E55, and K290). Based on MD simulation, coulomb energy and binding free energy analysis further reveal the importance of electrostatic interactions for catalytic activity of Bf MAT, which could be an efficient strategy for improving catalytic performance of MATs. Graphical Abstract