Biochemical and biophysical characterization of the OXA-48-like carbapenemase OXA-436

The crystal structure of the class D β-lactamase OXA-436 was solved to a resolution of 1.80 Å. Higher catalytic rates were found at higher temperatures for the clinically important antibiotic imipenem, indicating better adaptation of OXA-436 to its mesophilic host than OXA-48, which is believed to originate from an environmental source. Furthermore, based on the most populated conformations during 100 ns molecular-dynamics simulations, it is postulated that the modulation of activity involves conformational shifts of the α3-α4 and β5-β6 loops. While these changes overall do not cause clinically significant shifts in the resistance profile, they show that antibiotic-resistance enzymes exist in a continuum. It is believed that these seemingly neutral differences in the sequence exist on a path leading to significant changes in substrate selectivity.