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Enzyme forms produced from aspartate transcarbamoylase by digestion with trypsin.

ABSTRACT: 1. The time-course of tryptic hydrolysis of aspartate transcarbamoylase (aspartate carbamoyltransferase, EC 2.1.3.2) was followed by activity measurements in the presence and absence of allosteric effectors, and by polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis. 2. Two proteins with enzyme activity are formed in this way from native enzyme, and the isolation and some properties of these species are reported. The larger protein (10.6S) resembles native enzyme in that it contains regulatory subunits and is sensitive to allosteric effectors, as well as in a more detailed kinetic investigation. It appears from the time-course of tryptic digestion to be an intermediate in the formation of a catalytic subunit (5.5S) which is similar to, but not identical with, the catalytic subunit produced by mercurial treatment of the native enzyme. 3. Sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis of the different enzyme forms demonstrates that trypsin can hydrolyse bonds in the catalytic polypeptide chains as well as completely remove the regulatory polypeptide chains. 4. Both preparations of catalytic subunit can recombine with regulatory subunit to form enzymes which resemble the native enzyme in being activated by ATP, although they do not appear to be inhibited by CTP. 5. This study is consistent with the models of the enzyme that propose that the catalytic subunits are held together in the native enzyme by three pairs of regulatory polypeptide chains.

SUBMITTER: Heyde E

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1165797 | biostudies-other | 1973 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Project description:Enzymes catalyze a particular reaction in cells, but only a few control the rate of this reaction and the metabolic pathway that follows. One specific mechanism for such enzymatic control of a metabolic pathway involves molecular feedback, whereby a metabolite further down the pathway acts at a unique site on the control enzyme to alter its activity allosterically. This regulation may be positive or negative (or both), depending upon the particular system. Another method of enzymatic control involves the cooperative binding of the substrate, which allows a large change in enzyme activity to emanate from only a small change in substrate concentration. Allosteric regulation and homotropic cooperativity are often known to involve significant conformational changes in the structure of the protein. Escherichia coli aspartate transcarbamoylase (ATCase) is the textbook example of an enzyme that regulates a metabolic pathway, namely, pyrimidine nucleotide biosynthesis, by feedback control and by the cooperative binding of the substrate, L-aspartate. The catalytic and regulatory mechanisms of this enzyme have been extensively studied. A series of X-ray crystal structures of the enzyme in the presence and absence of substrates, products, and analogues have provided details, at the molecular level, of the conformational changes that the enzyme undergoes as it shifts between its low-activity, low-affinity form (T state) to its high-activity, high-affinity form (R state). These structural data provide insights into not only how this enzyme catalyzes the reaction between l-aspartate and carbamoyl phosphate to form N-carbamoyl-L-aspartate and inorganic phosphate, but also how the allosteric effectors modulate this activity. In this Account, we summarize studies on the structure of the enzyme and describe how these structural data provide insights into the catalytic and regulatory mechanisms of the enzyme. The ATCase-catalyzed reaction is regulated by nucleotide binding some 60 Å from the active site, inducing structural alterations that modulate catalytic activity. The delineation of the structure and function in this particular model system will help in understanding the molecular basis of cooperativity and allosteric regulation in other systems as well.

Project description:Here we report the isolation, kinetic characterization, and X-ray structure determination of a cooperative Escherichia coli aspartate transcarbamoylase (ATCase) without regulatory subunits. The native ATCase holoenzyme consists of six catalytic chains organized as two trimers bridged noncovalently by six regulatory chains organized as three dimers, c(6)r(6). Dissociation of the native holoenzyme produces catalytically active trimers, c(3), and nucleotide-binding regulatory dimers, r(2). By introducing specific disulfide bonds linking the catalytic chains from the upper trimer site specifically to their corresponding chains in the lower trimer prior to dissociation, a new catalytic unit, c(6), was isolated consisting of two catalytic trimers linked by disulfide bonds. Not only does the c(6) species display enhanced enzymatic activity compared to the wild-type enzyme, but the disulfide bonds also impart homotropic cooperativity, never observed in the wild-type c(3). The c(6) ATCase was crystallized in the presence of phosphate and its X-ray structure determined to 2.10 A resolution. The structure of c(6) ATCase liganded with phosphate exists in a nearly identical conformation as other R-state structures with similar values calculated for the vertical separation and planar angles. The disulfide bonds linking upper and lower catalytic trimers predispose the active site into a more active conformation by locking the 240s loop into the position characteristic of the high-affinity R state. Furthermore, the elimination of the structural constraints imposed by the regulatory subunits within the holoenzyme provides increased flexibility to the c(6) enzyme, enhancing its activity over the wild-type holoenzyme (c(6)r(6)) and c(3). The covalent linkage between upper and lower catalytic trimers restores homotropic cooperativity so that a binding event at one or so active sites stimulates binding at the other sites. Reduction of the disulfide bonds in the c(6) ATCase results in c(3) catalytic subunits that display kinetic parameters similar to those of wild-type c(3). This is the first report of an active c(6) catalytic unit that displays enhanced activity and homotropic cooperativity.

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Enzyme forms produced from aspartate transcarbamoylase by digestion with trypsin.

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