Divalent-Metal-Ion Selectivity of the CRISPR-Cas System-Associated Cas1 Protein: Insights from Classical Molecular...

CRISPR-associated protein 1 (Cas1) is a universally conserved essential metalloenzyme of the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR) immune system of prokaryotes (bacteria, archaea) that can cut and integrate a part of viral DNA to its host genome with the help of other proteins. The integrated DNA acts as a memory of viral infection, which can be transcribed to RNA and stop future infection by recognition (based on the RNA/DNA complementarity principle) followed by protein-mediated degradation of the viral DNA. It has been proposed that the presence of a single manganese (Mn²⁺) ion in a conserved divalent-metal-ion binding pocket (key residues: E190, H254, D265, D268) of Cas1 is crucial for its function. Cas1-mediated DNA degradation was proposed to be hindered by metal substitution, metal chelation, or mutation of the binding pocket residues. Cas1 is active toward dsDNA degradation with both Mn²⁺ and Mg²⁺. X-ray structures of Cas1 revealed an intricate atomic interaction network of the divalent-metal-ion binding pocket and opened up the possibility of modeling related metal ions (viz., Mg²⁺, Ca²⁺) in the binding pocket of wild-type (WT) and mutated Cas1 proteins for computational analysis, which includes (1) quantitative estimation of the energetics of the divalent-metal-ion preference and (2) exploring the structural and dynamical aspects of the protein in response to divalent-metal-ion substitution or amino acid mutation. Using the X-ray structure of the Cas1 protein from Pseudomonas aeruginosa as a template (PDB 3GOD), we performed (∼2.23 μs) classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to compare structural and dynamical differences between Mg²⁺- and Ca²⁺-bound binding pockets of wild-type (WT) and mutant (E190A, H254A, D265A, D268A) Cas1. Furthermore, reduced binding pocket models were generated from X-ray and molecular dynamics (MD) trajectories, and the resulting structures were subjected to quantum chemical calculations. Results suggest that Cas1 prefers Mg²⁺ binding relative to Ca²⁺ and the preference is the strongest for WT and the weakest for the D268A mutant. Quantum chemical calculations indicate that Mn²⁺ is the most preferred relative to both Mg²⁺ and Ca²⁺ in the wild-type and mutant Cas1. Substitution of Mg²⁺ by Ca²⁺ does not alter the interaction network between Cas1 and the divalent metal ion but increases the wetness of the binding pocket by introducing a single water molecule in the first coordination shell of the latter. The strength of metal-ion preference (Mg²⁺ versus Ca²⁺) seems to be dependent on the solvent accessibility of the divalent-metal-ion binding pocket, strongest for wild-type Cas1 (in which the metal-ion binding pocket is dry, which includes two water molecules) and the weakest for the D268A mutant (in which the metal-ion binding pocket is wet, which includes four water molecules).