Structural and functional studies reveal the molecular basis of substrate promiscuity of a glycosyltransferase originating from a major agricultural pest
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae, is a major cosmopolitan pest that feeds on more than 1100 plant species. Its genome contains an unprecedentedly large number of genes involved in detoxifying and transporting xenobiotics, including 80 genes that code for UDP glycosyltransferases (UGTs). These enzymes were acquired via horizontal gene transfer from bacteria after loss in the Chelicerata lineage. UGTs are well-known for their role in phase II metabolism; however, their contribution to host adaptation and acaricide resistance in arthropods, such as T. urticae, is not yet resolved. TuUGT202A2 (Tetur22g00270) has been linked to the ability of this pest to adapt to tomato plants. Moreover, it was shown that this enzyme can glycosylate a wide range of flavonoids. To understand this relationship at the molecular level, structural, functional, and computational studies were performed. Structural studies provided specific snapshots of the enzyme in different catalytically relevant stages. The crystal structure of TuUGT202A2 in complex with UDP-glucose was obtained and site-directed mutagenesis paired with molecular dynamic simulations revealed a novel lid-like mechanism involved in the binding of the activated sugar donor. Two additional TuUGT202A2 crystal complexes, UDP-(S)-naringenin and UDP-naringin, demonstrated that this enzyme has a highly plastic and open-ended acceptor-binding site. Overall, this work reveals the molecular basis of substrate promiscuity of TuUGT202A2 and provides novel insights into the structural mechanism of UGTs catalysis.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".