Enzymatic β-elimination in natural product O- and C-glycoside deglycosylation

Biological degradation of natural product glycosides involves, alongside hydrolysis, β-elimination for glycosidic bond cleavage. Here, we discover an O-glycoside β-eliminase (OGE) from Agrobacterium tumefaciens that converts the C3-oxidized O-β-D-glucoside of phloretin (a plant-derived flavonoid) into the aglycone and the 2-hydroxy-3-keto-glycal elimination product. While unrelated in sequence, OGE is structurally homologous to, and shows effectively the same Mn²⁺ active site as, the C-glycoside deglycosylating enzyme (CGE) from a human intestinal bacterium implicated in β-elimination of 3-keto C-β-D-glucosides. We show that CGE catalyzes β-elimination of 3-keto O- and C-β-D-glucosides while OGE is specific for the O-glycoside substrate. Substrate comparisons and mutagenesis for CGE uncover positioning of aglycone for protonic assistance by the enzyme as critically important for C-glycoside cleavage. Collectively, our study suggests convergent evolution of active site for β-elimination of 3-keto O-β-D-glucosides. C-Glycoside cleavage is a specialized feature of this active site which is elicited by substrate through finely tuned enzyme-aglycone interactions.