The reaction mechanism of retaining glycosyltransferases

The catalytic mechanism of retaining glycosyltransferases (ret-GTs) remains a controversial issue in glycobiology. By analogy to the well-established mechanism of retaining glycosidases, it was first suggested that ret-GTs follow a double-displacement mechanism. However, only family 6 GTs exhibit a putative nucleophile protein residue properly located in the active site to participate in catalysis, prompting some authors to suggest an unusual single-displacement mechanism [named as front-face or S_Ni (substitution nucleophilic internal)-like]. This mechanism has now received strong support, from both experiment and theory, for several GT families except family 6, for which a double-displacement reaction is predicted. In the last few years, we have uncovered the molecular mechanisms of several retaining GTs by means of quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) metadynamics simulations, which we overview in the present work.