Catalytic Mechanism of L,D-Transpeptidase 2 from Mycobacterium tuberculosis Described by a Computational Approach: Insights for the Design of New Antibiotics Drugs

Tuberculosis is perhaps the most persistent human disease caused by an infections bacterium, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The L,D-transpeptidase enzyme catalyzes the formation of 3 → 3 peptidoglycan cross-links of the Mtb cell wall and facilitates resistance against classical β-lactams. Herein, the experimentally proposed mechanism for LdtMt2 was studied by performing QM/MM MD simulations. The whole mechanistic process includes two stages: acylation and deacylation. During the acylation step, two steps were observed: the first step is a thiolate/imidazole ion-pair in the zwitterionic form, and the second step is the nucleophilic attack on the carboxyl carbon of the natural substrate accompanied by the breaking of the peptide bond on substrate. In the deacylation step the acyl-enzyme suffers a nucleophilic attack on the carboxyl carbon by the amine group of the second substrate. Our free energy results obtained by PMF analysis reveal that the first step (acylation) is the rate-limiting step in the whole catalytic mechanism in accordance with the experimental proposal. Also, the residues responsible for binding of the substrate and transition state stabilization were identified by energy decomposition methods.