Functional Evolution and Structural Conservation in Chimeric Cytochromes P450: Calibrating a Structure-Guided Approach

Recombination generates chimeric proteins whose ability to fold depends on minimizing structural perturbations that result when portions of the sequence are inherited from different parents. These chimeric sequences can display functional properties characteristic of the parents or acquire entirely new functions. Seventeen chimeras were generated from two CYP102 members of the functionally diverse cytochrome P450 family. Chimeras predicted to have limited structural disruption, as defined by the SCHEMA algorithm, displayed CO binding spectra characteristic of folded P450s. Even this small population exhibited significant functional diversity: chimeras displayed altered substrate specificities, a wide range in thermostabilities, up to a 40-fold increase in peroxidase activity, and ability to hydroxylate a substrate toward which neither parent heme domain shows detectable activity. These results suggest that SCHEMA-guided recombination can be used to generate diverse P450s for exploring function evolution within the P450 structural framework.