B. Schwer et S. Shuman, MUTATIONAL ANALYSIS OF YEAST MESSENGER-RNA CAPPING ENZYME, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United Statesof America, 91(10), 1994, pp. 4328-4332
RNA guanylyltransferase (capping enzyme) catalyzes the transfer of GMP
from GTP to the 5'-diphosphate end of mRNA. The capping reaction proc
eeds via an enzyme-guanylate intermediate in which GMP is linked coval
ently to a lysine residue of the enzyme. In the capping enzyme of Sacc
haromyces cerevisiae, GMP is attached to a 52-kDa polypeptide, identif
ied as the product of the essential CEG1 gene. The amino acid sequence
of the CEG1 protein includes a moth, Lys(70)-Thr-Asp-Gly, that is con
served at the active site of vaccinia virus RNA guanylyltransferase an
d which is similar to the KXDG sequence found at the active sites of R
NA and]DNA ligases. To evaluate the role of this moth in the function
of the yeast enzyme, we have expressed the CEG1 protein in active form
in Escherichia coli. Replacement of Lys(70) Or Gly(73) With alanine a
brogated enzyme-guanylate formation in vitro; in contrast, alanine sub
stitutions at Thr(71) Or ASp(72) merely reduced activity relative to w
ild-type enzyme. The K70A and G73A mutations were lethal to yeast, whe
reas yeast carrying the T71A and D72A alleles of CEG1 were viable. The
se results implicate Lys(70) as the active site of yeast guanylyltrans
ferase and provide evidence that cap formation per se is an essential
function in eukaryotic cells.