Crystal Structures of Two Vancomycin Complexes with Phosphate and N-Acetyl-D-Ala. Structural Comparison between Low-Affinity and High-Affinity Ligand Complexes of Vancomycin

Crystal structures of two vancomycin complexes with phosphate and N-acetyl-D-Ala (AcDA) were determined. Each complex involves two crystallographically independent vancomycin molecules (V1 and V2) in the asymmetric unit, which form a usually observed back-to-back arranged vancomycin dimer V1-V2 with two disaccharide chains packed in a head-to-head manner, but only one of the two ligand-binding sites is occupied. Comparison of the published crystal structures of low-affinity (small in molecular size) ligand complexes of vancomycin with high-affinity (large) ligand complexes reveals that when the high-affinity ligand binds, three structural factors (hydrogen-bonding interactions between the two peptide-backbones and hydrophobic intra-dimer sugar ring and ring (face) ring (edge) interactions) work to enhance the stabilization of the back-to-back dimer-interface, an important factor that is believed to promote antibacterial activity. It has also been revealed, by examining the high-affinity ligand complexes (including N-acetyl-D-Ala D-Ala), that sugar-ligand interaction could cause different affinities of the two halves of the dimer; this is a factor responsible for the failure of the ligand binding to V1 in the AcDA complex. Possible scenarios for the formation of vancomycin complexes with low-affinity as well as high-affinity ligands are presented.