Structural Insights into the Dual-Substrate Recognition and Catalytic Mechanisms of a Bifunctional Acetyl Ester-Xyloside Hydrolase from Caldicellulosiruptor lactoaceticus

Enzymes are usually characterized by their evolutionarily conserved catalytic domains; however, this work presents the incidental gain-of-function of an enzyme in a loop region by natural evolution of its amino acids. A bifunctional acetyl ester–xyloside hydrolase (CLH10) was heterologously expressed, purified, and characterized. The primary sequence of CLH10 contains the fragments of the conserved sequence of esterase and glycosidase, which distribute in a mixed type. The crystal structure revealed that the primary sequence folded into two independent structural regions to undertake both acetyl esterase and β-1,4-xylanase hydrolase functions. CLH10 is capable of cleaving both the β-1,4-xylosidic bond-linked main chain and the ester bond-linked acetylated side chain of xylan, which renders it valuable because it can degrade acetylated xylan within one enzyme. Significantly, the β-1,4-xylanase activity of CLH10 appears to have been fortuitously obtained because of the variable Asp10 and Glu139 located in i...