Essentiality of conserved amino acid residues in β-lactamase

Chikunova, A. (2022)

Doctoral Thesis

Evolution acts via mutations in amino acid sequences. Substitution of essential amino acids leads to a nonfunctional protein. Thus, the number of essential residues is limited by evolutionary pressure. The roles of all non-catalytic essential residues in class A β-lactamases are described with a large-scale experiments, as well as specific functions of a few residues. The results show that residues close to the active site and farther away have different reasons for being essential.

• Protein evolution
• Conserved residues
• β-lactamase
• BlaC

• All authors: Chikunova, A.
• Supervisor: Ubbink, M.; Perrakis, A.
• Committee: Overkleeft, H.S.; Dame, R.T.; Wentink, A.S.; Doucet, N.; Blaauwen, T. den
• Qualification: Doctor (dr.)
• Awarding Institution: Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC), Faculty of Science, Leiden University
• Date: 2022-05-31