Amastigote forms of Leishmania donovani in peripheral blood.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to O P Malhotra.
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Rate studies using phosphoglycerate kinase (PGK)--glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GPDH) enzyme pair have been carried out to distinguish between the two mechanisms of intermediate metabolite transfer, namely diffusion through the solvent versus "substrate channelling" within an enzyme-enzyme complex. A procedure has been described for the assay of the rates of PGK-catalysed and the PGK-GPDH coupled reactions at high (saturating) GPDH concentration. With PGKs of rabbit muscle and yeast, the coupled reaction proceeded faster than the PGK-catalysed reaction. At a high salt concentration (0.5 M KCl), where a PGK-GPDH complex is known to dissociate, the two reactions proceeded at almost equal rates. At fixed PGK concentration, the rate of the coupled reaction at high (saturating) GPDH concentration varied with the nature (biological origin) of the latter enzyme. In the presence of 0.5 M KCl, the saturating rate values with different GPDHs were almost equal. The PGK-catalysed reaction exhibited typical Michaelian behaviour on varying the substrate concentrations (linear double reciprocal plots). The Km values for 3-PGA (0.51 mM) and ATP (0.40 mM) were independent of the concentration of the second substrate. The double reciprocal plots for the coupled reaction showed downward curvature, i.e. activation at higher substrate concentrations. The ratio of the rate of the coupled reaction: the rate of the PGK catalysed reaction was found to be a function of the nature of PGK, nature of GPDH, nature of buffer, pH, salt concentration and substrate concentrations. The ratio varied between close to unity at low substrate concentrations, to three when the Vmax values of the two reactions were compared. At low substrate concentrations, the rate of the coupled reaction became independent of the nature of GPDH. It has been suggested that in the PGK-GPDH pair, the intermediate metabolite (BPG) is transferred directly from one enzyme to the other within an enzyme-enzyme complex, except at high salt or low substrate concentrations. Under the latter conditions, data were consistent with metabolite transfer by diffusion. Implications of these results for coupled enzyme assays have been discussed.
Urease from pigeonpea was entrapped in polyacrylamide gel with 50% immobilization at 10% total monomer (containing 5% cross-linker) with high mechanical stability of the gel. Approximately 0.61 mg of protein could be loaded per 5 ml of gel. The immobilized enzyme had a t1/2 of approx. 200 days when stored in 0.1 M Tris/acetate buffer, pH 6.5, at 4 degrees C. The gel strips were used 4-5 times for urea assay over a period of 6 h with less than 2% loss of activity. Approximately 50% immobilization of urease in calcium alginate was observed at 3% alginate with 0.12 mg protein/ml alginate. The resultant enzyme beads showed a t1/2 of approx. 75 days when stored in 0.1 M Tris/acetate buffer, pH 6.5, at 4 degrees C. The beads were used 4-5 times for urea assay over a period of 6 h with about 40% loss of activity. In both cases, the enzyme activity was directly proportional to the amount of immobilized enzyme. There was practically no leaching of the entrapped enzyme over a period of 48 h from either of the polymers. Both the immobilized enzyme preparations were used to analyse the blood urea of some clinical samples from the University hospital. The results obtained compared favourably with those obtained by the usual method employed in the clinical pathology laboratory.
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A gel penetration technique, that measures the dilution undergone by protein equilibrium on a short tightly packed gel column, has been employed to determine the molecular masses of aldolase (160 kDa), glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GPDH; 145 kDa) in the absence and presence of each other and of other proteins. The dilution factor (concentration of protein applied/concentration of protein after equilibration) was found to be inversely related to the molecular mass of the protein. In equimolar mixtures of aldolase and GPDH, 0.5-2.5 microM each, the two enzymes exhibited a common molecular mass value of 309-316 kDa. These enzymes did not undergo any self association or disassociation in this concentration range. Moreover, their molecular masses were unaffected by the presence of other proteins tested. When the concentration of one of these enzymes (aldolase or GPDH) was held constant and that of the other varied, the dilution factor of the former was decreased as the concentration of the latter was increased until it corresponded to a molecular mass of ca. 310 kDa at equimolar concentrations of the two enzymes. Further increase in the concentration of the variable enzyme had no effect. It has been suggested that aldolase and GPDH form a 1:1 complex of dissociation constant equal to or less than 5 x 10(-8) M. The complex was found to dissociate in the presence of KCl, (NH4)2SO4, ATP and NADH whereas its formation was favoured by fructose-1,6-bisphosphate, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate, NAD+, ADP, AMP and phosphate ions.
Properties of mung bean pyruvate kinase were studied and the active site groups were derived. Metabolites like AMP, glucose, glucose-6-phosphate, fructose-6-phosphate, fructose-1, 6-bisphosphate, 3-phospho-glycerate, isocitrate, malate and alpha-ketoglutarate had practically no effect on pyruvate kinase activity. Alanine, serine, glutamine, methionine and GMP had a weak activating effect on the enzyme. Some metabolites such as ATP, GTP, and UMP were found to be weakly inhibitory. Moderate to strong inhibition was observed with citrate, succinate, glutamate and oxalate. Inhibition brought about by ATP and citrate when present together showed synergistic effect. Inhibition by citrate was non-competitive with respect to both PEP and ADP suggesting the presence of a regulatory site. Mung bean pyruvate kinase showed half optimal activity at pH 6.6 and 8.9 at saturating concentrations of PEP, ADP and Mg2+. Small concentrations of the SH specific reagents, namely iodoacetamide (0.1 and 0.2 mM), N-ethylmaleimide(0.05-0.1 mM) and p-chloromercuribenzoate (0.1 mM) inactivated the enzyme; single exponential loss of activity was observed in each case. Photooxidation of the enzyme in the presence of methylene blue (100 and 200 micrograms/ml) and rose bengal (5 and 10 micrograms/ml) also led to a single exponential activity decay. When the enzyme was treated with diethyl pyrocarbonate (DEP), a time dependent exponential decay in its activity was observed with a parallel increase in absorbance at 240 nm. PEP protected the enzyme against inactivation by DEP. Reagents specific for tyrosine (iodine and tetranitromethane) and tryptophan residues (N-bromosuccinimide) residues had no effect. These observations confirm that SH and imidazole groups are vital for the activity of the enzyme.
A simple and rapid procedure based on the gel filtration principle is described together with its applicability to the study of protein-protein interactions including subunit-subunit and enzyme-enzyme interactions. Using this procedure, it is shown that phosphoglycerate kinase (PGK) and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GPDH) interact with a stoichiometry of one PGK molecule combining with one monomeric subunit of GPDH. This interaction has been observed with both enzymes being from the same, as well as from different, species. The Kd values for rabbit muscle PGK and porcine muscle GPDH complex and that for the rabbit muscle PGK and yeast GPDH complex are found to be (4.5 +/- 2.0) x 10(-7) M and (6.5 +/- 1.7) x 10(-7) M, respectively. The specificity of bienzyme association is stronger when enzymes are from the same species than when they are from different species.
Mung bean pyruvate kinase (PK) practically free from PEP-phosphatase has been purified about 36 fold. The enzyme is irreversibly inactivated on desalting by gel filtration or dialysis (without EDTA). The inactivation is also observed in the presence of ATP, Mg2+ or thiols but is prevented by a non-proteinous, heat stable, small molecular mass factor present in the mung bean extract. Mung bean PK has a molecular mass of 210 kDa. It shows single exponential decay of activity at various temperatures (-4 to 60 degrees C). The Km of PEP and ADP are found to be 0.12 and 0.24 mM, respectively at pH 6.5, when the enzyme is saturated with the second substrate. The Km values for PEP and ADP are 0.05 and 0.16 mM, at pH 8.5 and 0.09 and 0.17 mM, respectively at pH 7.5. The optimum pH is 7.5. The enzyme shows an absolute requirement for Mg2+ (Km 0.43 mM) or Mn2+ ions (Km 0.125 mM). Potassium ions are not essential but activate the enzyme in the presence of Mg2+ or Mn2+ ions. ATP shows competitive inhibition with ADP and non-competitive with PEP. Kinetic studies at different pHs and effects of ATP suggest the formation of a ternary complex (E.ADP.PEP) by a combination of random and compulsory ordered pathways depending on the experimental conditions.
Examination of the pH- and ionic strength (mu)-dependence of the equilibrium between fast- and slow-folding forms of bovine prothrombin fragment 1 reveals a sharp dependence of Keq ([% fast-folding form]/[% slow-folding form]) and % fluorescence quenching (%Q) on pH at low mu, and the absence of a pH-dependence of Keq at high mu (0.1 M NaCl) and much reduced pH-dependence of %Q, suggesting that the ionization process is coupled to other processes, such as self-association. The observed low mu pH effect on Keq amounts to a 10% increase in the % of the fast-folding form of prothrombin at low pH. We hypothesize the existence of a pH-dependent self-association of bovine prothrombin fragment 1. This process is associated with a conformation change involving an ionizing group with pKa in the neighborhood of 6.5 and a change in Keq from 0.27 to 0.45.
When rabbit muscle phosphoglycerate kinase (PGK; a 48-kDa monomeric protein) and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GraPDH; a 145-kDa homotetrameric protein) are present together in solution in the proportion of 1 mol PGK/1 mol GraPDH monomer (total protein 0.2-1.0 mg/ml), an 80--82-kDa protein species is observed by gel-penetration (dilution factor) method and by the conventional procedure of elution from a gel column. Individually, PGK and GraPDH do not exhibit any self association or dissociation in the concentration range employed. Electrophoresis of the 80-82-kDa peak eluted from the gel column shows a single protein band with mobility intermediate between those of GraPDH and PGK. In titration experiments by the gel-penetration method, plots of dilution factor of PGK (or GraPDH) activity versus GraPDH (or PGK) concentration shows two linear portions intersecting at approximately 1 mol GraPDH monomer/1 mol PGK. From the molecular-mass values and the titration experiments, it has been suggested that, in solution, these enzymes form a complex consisting of 1 molecule of PGK and one monomeric subunit of GraPDH (expected molecular mass 84 kDa). Its dissociation constant has been estimated to be equal to or less than 13 nM. The complex is dissociated in the presence of KCl or NADH, with approximately half dissociation at 0.1 M salt or 0.25 mM NADH. At 0.1 M KCl, the complex is completely dissociated by adding ATP, NADH or 3-phosphoglycerate. AMP, ADP, NAD+, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate, phosphate ions and fructose-1,6-bisphosphate reverse the effect of KCl.
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The interaction of bovine prothrombin with Ca2+ and Mg2+ ions was investigated by following H+ release as a function of metal ion concentration at pH 6 and pH 7.4 at high and low ionic strength. Prothrombin Ca2+ and Mg2+ binding is characterized by high- and low-affinity sites. M2+ binding at these sites is associated with intramolecular conformational changes and also with intermolecular self-association. The pH dependence of H+ release by M2+ is bell shaped and consistent with controlling pKa values of 4.8 and 6.5. At pH 6 and low ionic strength, both Ca2+ and Mg2+ titrations following H+ release clearly show independent low- and high-affinity binding sites. Laser light scattering reveals that at pH 7.4 and low ionic strength, and at pH 6.0 and high ionic strength, the prothrombin molecular weight is between 73 and 98 kD. At pH 7.4 and high ionic strength, prothrombin is monomeric in the absence of metal ions, but appears to dimerize in the presence of M2+. At pH 6.0 and low ionic strength prothrombin exists as a dimer in the absence of metal ions and is tetrameric in the presence of Ca2+ and remains dimeric in the presence of Mg2+. These results and those for metal ion-dependent H+ release indicate that H+ release occurs concomitantly with association processes involving prothrombin.
The management of ITP in pregnancy remains controversial, particularly with reference to labour management. Thirteen pregnancies in 9 women with ITP are analysed with respect to maternal and neonatal outcome. One pregnancy culminated in spontaneous abortion. Ten infants were born by vaginal delivery and two by Caesarean section. There were no maternal or perinatal deaths. Maternal morbidity was not increased significantly due to ITP and none of the infants had purpuric manifestations even with low platelet counts. It is concluded that the obstetric management of these patients should be individualised and should not be based on platelet count alone.
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