Activation of human rhinovirus-14 3C protease

The catalytic efficiency of human rhinovirus-14 (HRV14) 3C protease as a function of solvents and other regulators has been investigated using synthetic peptides as substrates. The proteolytic activity of HRV14 3C was found to be strongly stimulated by a series of anions in vitro and the activation was accompanied by changed Km, kcat, and increased kcat/Km values. A more than 72-fold increase in the 3C catalytic efficiency toward peptide substrates was observed in the presence of 0.8 M sodium sulfate. Several approaches, including size-exclusion chromatography and chemical cross-linking experiments, suggested that no oligomerization of the 3C enzyme occurred in the presence of activating anions. However, the anions did induce a significant conformational change of HRV14 3C protease, as revealed by circular dichroism spectrometry and tyrosine fluorescence analyses, which might contribute to 3C enzyme activation. Finally, the results obtained from 3C protease inhibitor studies suggested that the S1 specificity pocket of HRV14 3C was mainly affected by the activating anions. An induced-fit catalysis mechanism for viral proteases is discussed.