Ribonuclease T1 is active when both catalytic histidines are replaced by aspartate

The enzymatic activity of many ribonucleases (RNases) depends on two histidines, as in RNase A, or one histidine and/or glutamate, as in microbial RNases belonging to the T1 family. In RNase T1, substitution of either one or both of the two histidines at positions 40 and 92 by a variety of other amino acids reduces the activity more than 100-fold. However, the double variant His40-->Asp/His92-->Asp retains a significant residual enzymatic activity towards RNA and guanylyl-3',5'-cytidine, indicating that a pair of substituted side chains in these positions, both with acid functionality, can confer enzymatic activity. It was shown that the substitution of histidine with glutamate in the variant His40-->Glu yields an enzyme with drastically reduced activity and leads to inactivation in the His92-->Glu, His40-->Glu/His92-->Glu variants. For the variants where histidine is substituted with aspartate we found measurable activity from 1% (His40-->Asp) to 6% (His40-->Glu/His92-->Asp) towards RNA.