This class has been further subdivided into hyperactive
Class I + (N100%) and hypoactive Class I−
(b100%) mutants. Class II mutants are able to
undergo only a single round of nucleotide addition,
demonstrating that these polymerases retain the
ability to bind and position an NTP over the active
site but have lost the ability to rapidly carry out
subsequent rounds of processive nucleotide incorporation.
Last, Class III mutants have lost the ability
to add even a single nucleotide, suggesting that
these mutations have significantly disrupted the
structure and function of the active site.
Ser288 mutations
We first examined the effects of an alanine
mutation at Ser288, a residue that adopts two
different conformations so that its side chain can
form hydrogen bonds with either the backbone
amide nitrogen of Asp177 (/up) or the side chain of
Asp238 (/down) (Fig. 3). The S288A mutation
retained the ability to incorporate multiple nucleotides
(Fig. 4B), but the 32P-UMP incorporation
activity was reduced 15-fold, indicating that the
hydrogen bonding to the ring finger and Asp238 is
important but not essential for proper polymerase
function. The crystal structure of the S288A loop
mutant is complicated by the covalent modification of
Cys290 with a dimethyl arsenic adduct, and the
remaining electron density of the loop is very weak,
precluding identification of a preferred loop conformation
and suggesting that it may be more flexible
than in the wild type and the other mutant polymerases
(Fig. 2F).
Gly289 mutations
Comparison of all the 3Dpol structures indicates
that both Ser288 and Gly289 adopt significantly
different backbone torsion angles in the separate
loop conformations. We hypothesized that the
ability of the loop to adopt both the in/down and
the out/down conformation was dependent upon the
flexibility of a glycine at residue 289. To further
examine this, we mutated Gly289 to alanine, a
residue that limits backbone flexibility while minimizing
the potential for adverse side-chain interactions.
The G289A mutation was also generated in
combination with the Class I + and I− mutants at
residue 290. In all cases, the G289A mutation
completely abolishes processive elongation activity
and not even the hyperactive isoleucine or valine
substitutions at residue 290 could compensate for
the effects of the alanine (Table 1). Interestingly, the
single nucleotide addition assay results indicate that
all G289A mutants can incorporate the first nucleotide,
albeit at reduced efficiency, but then fail to
efficiently carry out additional rounds of catalysis
(Fig. 4C). The structures show that the G289A
mutation locks the polymerase in the in/up conformation,
even when combined with mutations that by