Double Histidine Based EPR Measurements at Physiological Temperatures Permit Site-Specific Elucidation of Hidden Dynamics in Enzymes

Protein dynamics is at the heart of all cellular processes. Here, we utilize the dHis-Cu(II)NTA label to obtain site-specific information on dynamics for both an alpha-helix and beta-sheet site of GB1, the immunoglobulin binding domain of protein G. Spectral features found in our CW-EPR measurements were consistent with the overall rigid nature of GB1 and with predictions from molecular dynamics simulations. Using this information, we show the potential of this approach to elucidate the role of dynamics in substrate binding of a functionally necessary alpha-helix in human glutathione transferase A1-1 (hGSTA1-1). We observe two dynamical modes for the helix. The addition of the inhibitor GS-Met and GS-Hex resulted in hGSTA1-1 to favor the more rigid active state conformation, while the faster mode potentially aids the search for substrates. Together the results illustrate the remarkable potential of the dHis-based labelling approach to measure site-specific dynamics using room temperature lineshape analysis.