Cysteine pKa depression by a protonated glutamic acid in human DJ-1

Human DJ-1, a disease-associated protein that protects cells from oxidative stress, contains an oxidation-sensitive cysteine (C106) that is essential for its cytoprotective activity. The origin of C106 reactivity is obscure, due in part to the absence of an experimentally determined pK(a), value for this residue. We have used atomic-resolution X-ray crystallography and UV spectroscopy to show that C106 has a depressed pK(a) of 5.4 +/- 0.1 and that the C106 thiolate accepts a hydrogen bond from a protonated glutamic acid side chain (E18). X-ray crystal structures and cysteine pK(a) analysis of several site-directed substitutions at residue 18 demonstrate that the protonated carboxylic acid side chain of E 18 is required for the maximal stabilization of the C106 thiolate. A nearby arginine residue (R48) participates in a guanidinium stacking interaction with R28 from the other monomer in the DJ-1 dimer and elevates the pKa of C106 by binding an anion that electrostatically suppresses thiol ionization. Our results show that the ionizable residues (E18, R48, and R28) surrounding C106 affect its pK(a) in a way that is contrary to expectations based on the typical ionization behavior of glutamic acid and arginine. Lastly, a search of the Protein Data Bank (PDB) produces several candidate hydrogen-bonded aspartic/glutamic acid-cysteine interactions, which we propose are particularly common in the DJ-1 superfamily.