Pyridoxal arsenate as a prosthetic group for aspartate aminotransferase.
The apoenzyme of aspartate aminotransferase formed a stable, active holoenzyme on treatment with pyridoxal in the presence of arsenate.
Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to H B Dixon.
The apoenzyme of aspartate aminotransferase formed a stable, active holoenzyme on treatment with pyridoxal in the presence of arsenate.
This paper describes the metabolism, transport and growth inhibition effects of 2-aminoethylarsonic acid (AEA) and 3-aminopropylarsonic acid (APrA). The former compound supported growth of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, as sole nitrogen source. The two arsonates inhibited the growth of this bacterium when 2-aminoethylphosphonic acid (AEP) but not alanine or NH4Cl, was supplied as the only other nitrogen source. The analogy between AEA and the natural compound AEP led us to examine the in vitro and in vivo interaction of AEA with the enzymes of AEP metabolism. The uptake system for AEP (Km 6 microM) was found to be competitively inhibited by AEA and APrA (Ki 18 microM for each). AEP-aminotransferase was found to act on AEA with a Km of 4 mM (3.85 mM for AEP). Alanine and 2-arsonoacetaldehyde was generated concomitantly, in a stoichiometric reaction. In vivo, AEA was catabolized by the AEP-aminotransferase since it was able to first induce this enzyme, then to be an efficient substrate. The lower growth observed may have been due to the slowness with which the permease and the aminotransferase were induced, and hence to a poor supply of alanine by transamination.
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An acid, HnA, with n ionizing groups is known to have the same titration curve as an equimolar mixture of n hypothetical monobasic acids, whose dissociation constants are known as the 'titration constants' of the real acid. We show that the pH-dependence of any property of HnA is also represented by the sum of one-site titration curves, characterized by these same titration constants. Since one such property is the degree of dissociation of one of the dissociating groups, a fraction of each group shows each of the various titration pK values, so that the group partitions among them. The n groups therefore share the same n titration pK values but differ in the fractions belonging to each. The one H+ ion per molecule that titrates with each pK is thus made up of the fractions, one from each group, that share this pK value. A group may possess a single pK value, in that it contributes virtually all of this pK and almost nothing to the others, only if either (1) in titrates in a different pH range from the other groups or (2) its affinity for H+ is unaffected by their ionization state.
[2-(Amino-oxy)ethyl](5'-deoxyadenosin-5'-yl)(methyl)sulphonium+ ++, the amino-oxy analogue of decarboxylated S-adenosylmethionine, is a potent irreversible inhibitor of Escherichia coli S-adenosylmethionine decarboxylase [Khomutov, Zavalova, Syrku, Artamonova & Khomutov (1983) Bioorg. Khim. 9, 130-131; Artamonova, Zavalova, Khomutov & Khomutov (1986) Bioorg. Khim. 12, 206-212]. We have shown that Mg2+ ions are required for the irreversible inhibition of the decarboxylase, and that S-adenosylmethionine protects against this inhibition.
Bromoacetylphosphonic acid, Br-CH2-CO-PO3H2, was made by brominating dimethyl acetylphosphonate and de-esterifying with HBr. It proves to be a powerful alkylating agent, reacting rapidly with GSH, with a rate constant of about 6M(-1).s(-1) at pH6.
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Acylphosphonic acids, R-CO-PO(OH)2, have been synthesized by the steps [formula: see text] of which the last is new and provides a mild method for de-esterifying acylphosphonic acids. Their reductive amination gives a simple way of making 1-aminoalkylphosphonic acids. Acetylphosphonic acid inhibited NAD+ reduction by pyruvate with the pyruvate dehydrogenases from Escherichia coli and Bacillus stearothermophilus. The inhibition was competitive with pyruvate, with Ki of 6 microM for the E. coli enzyme (pyruvate Km 0.5 mM) and one of 0.4 mM of the B. stearothermophilus enzyme (pyruvate Km 0.1 mM). Acetylphosphonate and its monomethyl ester are substates for pig heart lactate dehydrogenase, with Km values of 15 mM and 10 mM respectively (pyruvate Km 0.05 mM) and specificity constants one thousandth that for pyruvate.
3-Phosphonoalanine has been made by the Strecker synthesis from phosphonoacetaldehyde, which is easily prepared from vinyl acetate. It gives phosphonopyruvate by transamination when treated with glyoxylate. Phosphonolactate, an analogue of phosphoglycerate, is prepared by reducing phosphonopyruvate. Diazotization of phosphonoalanine was investigated as a route for making phosphonolactate: addition of NaNO2 to the isoelectric form of phosphonoalanine gave much scission of the C-P bond with release of phosphate; addition of HBr prevented this release and gave largely the bromo acid. The supplement reports the synthesis of arsonolactate, a similar analogue, by treating chlorolactate with alkaline arsenite.
2-Aminoethylarsonic acid was prepared from 2-choloethylarsonic acid. The route constitutes a new procedure for making primary amines from haloalkanes; chloride was displaced by treatment with 2-aminoethanol at 70 degrees C, and the product was converted into the required primary amine by treatment with periodate.
Taurine and 2-aminoethylphosphonic acid were synthesized by the method of the main paper [Geoghegan & Dixon (1989) Biochem. J. 260, 295-296], i.e. by treating the corresponding halo compound with 2-aminoethanol and then with periodate.
2-Aminoethylarsonic acid was tested for its ability to act as a substrate for ethanolamine-phosphate cytidylytransferase as a cytidylyl acceptor in place of ethanolamine phosphate. The expected product, like all mixed anhydrides of arsonic acids, should hydrolyse spontaneously with regeneration of the substrate analogue and CMP formation; such CMP production was observed. The limiting velocity with aminoethylarsonic acid is about 90% that with ethanolamine phosphate, and the Michaelis constant is below 20 mM.
The relationships between the molecular pK values of a dibasic acid, its titration pK values and the pH values at which the concentration of monohydronated species is half-maximal are presented. These enable any pair of the values to be found from any other pair.
A reaction in which the hydron [International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (1986) Chem. Int. 8 (4), 21] is a reactant will have a more acidic pH optimum than the reverse reaction in which it is a product. Simple mechanistic models, made by postulating various ways in which the hydron is supplied for the forward reaction, lead to the prediction that the pK that characterizes the fall in activity on the alkaline side for the forward reaction will be equal to that characterizing the fall on the acid side for the reverse reaction. It is not possible to identify what is responsible for this pK without additional information; as is well known, different possible dispositions of hydrons in transition states cannot usually be distinguished solely by kinetics.
The phosphonomethyl analogue of 3-phosphoglycerate (2-hydroxy-4-phosphonobutanoate) is a potent competitive inhibitor of cofactor-dependent phosphoglycerate mutase from yeast and of cofactor-independent phosphoglycerate mutase from wheat germ. For the yeast enzyme Ki is 1.3 mM (Km for substrate is 0.71 mM); for the wheatgerm enzyme Ki is 18 mM (Km for substrate is 0.86 mM). This analogue should be a useful tool for n.m.r. spectroscopic studies on the mechanism of action of the two mutases. The arsonomethyl analogue of 3-phosphoglycerate (4-arsono-2-hydroxybutanoate) was a relatively poor inhibitor.
DNA-directed RNA polymerase from Escherichia coli can break down RNA by catalysing the reverse of the reaction: NTP + (RNA)n = (RNA)n+1 + PPi where n indicates the number of nucleotide residues in the RNA molecule, to yield nucleoside triphosphates. This reaction requires the ternary complex of the polymerase with template DNA and the RNA that it has synthesized. It is now shown that methylenebis(arsonic acid) [CH2(AsO3H2)2], arsonomethylphosphonic acid (H2O3As-CH2-PO3H2) and arsonoacetic acid (H2O3As-CH2-CO2H) can replace pyrophosphate in this reaction. When they do so, the low-Mr products of the reaction prove to be nucleoside 5'-phosphates, so that the arsenical compounds endow the polymerase with an artificial exonuclease activity, an effect previously found by Rozovskaya, Chenchik, Tarusova, Bibilashvili & Khomutov [(1981) Mol. Biol. (Moscow) 15, 636-652] for phosphonoacetic acid (H2O3P-CH2-CO2H). This is explained by instability of the analogues of nucleoside triphosphates believed to be the initial products. Specificity of recognition of pyrophosphate is discussed in terms of the sites, beta and gamma, for the -PO3H2 groups of pyrophosphate that will yield P-beta and P-gamma of the nascent nucleoside triphosphate. Site gamma can accept -AsO3H2 in place of -PO3H2, but less well; site beta can accept both, and also -CO2H. We suggest that partial transfer of an Mg2+ ion from the attacking pyrophosphate to the phosphate of the internucleotide bond of the RNA may increase the nucleophilic reactivity of the pyrophosphate and the electrophilicity of the diester, so that the reaction is assisted.
Adenosine was converted into the arsonomethyl analogue of AMP. The reactions used provide a general route for converting an alcohol, R-CH2-OH, into the arsonomethyl analogue, R-CH2-CH2-AsO3H2, of its phosphate, R-CH2-O-PO3H2. The analogue of AMP proves to be a substrate for rabbit adenylate kinase, which shows a limiting velocity with it of 1/17 that with AMP, a Michaelis constant raised 70-fold to about 10 mM, and hence a specificity constant lowered about 1200-fold. The product of transfer of a phospho group from ATP to the analogue is, like all anhydrides of arsonic acids, unstable to hydrolysis, and so breaks down to yield orthophosphate and regenerate the analogue. Hence adenylate kinase is converted into an ATPase by the presence of the analogue.