Tissue Transglutaminase - Mechanism

Mechanism

The catalytic mechanism for crosslinking in human tTG involves the thiol group from a Cys residue in the active site of tTG. The thiol group attacks the carboxamide of a glutamine residue on the surface of a protein or peptide substrate, releasing ammonia, and producing a thioester intermediate. The thioester intermediate can then be attacked by the surface amine of a second substrate (typically from a lysine residue). The end product of the reaction is a stable isopeptide bond between the two substrates (i.e. crosslinking). Alternatively, the thioester intermediate can be hydrolyzed, resulting in the net conversion of the glutamine residue to glutamic acid (i.e. deamidation). The deamidation of glutamine residues catalyzed by tTG is thought to be linked to the pathological immune response to gluten in celiac disease. A schematic for the crosslinking and the deamidation reactions is provided in Figure 1.