Progressive Loosening of a Dual Autoinhibitory Interface Activates PP2A-B56δ
Protein phosphatase 2A containing the B56δ regulatory subunit (PP2A-B56δ) is a critical signaling enzyme whose dysregulation is associated with cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, and Jordan’s syndrome, a severe intellectual disability disorder caused by mutations in B56δ. Unlike other PP2A holoenzymes, PP2A-B56δ is regulated through a unique dual autoinhibition mechanism in which the N- and C-arms occlude the catalytic site while a substrate-mimicking short linear motif (SLiM) blocks the substrate-binding pocket. Although disease-associated mutations have been shown to alter enzyme activity, the molecular mechanism underlying activation of PP2A-B56δ and the effects of pathogenic mutations remain poorly understood. Here, we combined cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), enhanced-sampling molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, Markov state model (MSM) construction, and transition-state analysis using Transition State identification via Dispersion and vAriational principle Regularized neural networks (TS-DAR) to characterize the conformational landscape of the disease variant E198K. Our cryo-EM analysis identified two distinct structures of E198K: an inactive closed-form with the N/C-arms resolved and an active loose-form in which the N/C-arms become highly flexible and could not be fully resolved. These structures therefore established that activation is governed by conformational changes of the N/C-arms but did not reveal the underlying mechanism. Starting from the inactive closed-form, we generated over 1,600 trajectories with an average length of 1,260 ns combined for E198K and wild-type (WT) PP2A-B56δ. TS-DAR identified four metastable states and two major activation pathways connecting inactive and active conformations. We found that activation occurs through progressive loosening of the N/C-arm interface while maintaining the overall holoenzyme architecture, rather than a complete opening of the interface. This mechanism exposes both the catalytic site and substrate-binding pocket. Comparison of E198K and WT revealed that the disease-associated mutation shifts the conformational equilibrium toward active states while leaving the transition-state ensemble largely unchanged. Mechanistically, E198K disrupts a salt-bridge network and weakens interactions between the internal loop and the C-arm that normally stabilize active-site occlusion. The resulting increase in C-arm mobility promotes active-site exposure and explains the elevated catalytic activity of the mutant. Together, these findings establish a previously uncharacterized activation mechanism for PP2A-B56δ and provide an atomic-level explanation for how the pathogenic E198K mutation allosterically promotes holoenzyme activation.