Biomedical subjects
W J Whelan
Publications and source records attributed to W J Whelan.
Partition chromatography revisited.
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Serendipity: how the concept of inborn lysosomal disease was discovered.
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Fifty years ago: the First International Congress of Biochemistry.
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Pride and prejudice: the discovery of the primer for glycogen synthesis.
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The human intron-containing gene for glycogenin maps to chromosome 3, band q24.
Glycogenin is the autocatalytic, self-glucosylating primer for glycogen synthesis, providing the anchor on which the macromolecule is constructed. We have sequenced the cDNA coding for human muscle glycogenin and have deduced the corresponding amino acid sequence. By means of the polymerase chain reaction and fluorescence in situ hybridization, we have found the chromosomal location of the gene coding for glycogenin. This is localized to human chromosome 3, band q24.
Scientist and Statesman: Ephraim Katchalski-Katzir at 80.
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beta-Glucosylarginine: a new glucose-protein bond in a self-glucosylating protein from sweet corn.
In the search for a protein primer for starch synthesis, an autocatalytic self-glucosylating protein has been isolated from sweet corn. Several tryptic peptides were obtained from the [14C]glucosylated protein and were sequenced, corresponding to over 40% of the estimated total sequence (molecular mass 42 kDa). There is no homology with the amino acid sequence of the autocatalytic glycogen primer, glycogenin, nor in respect of the nature of the union between the autocatalytically added glucose and the protein, which, in the case of the corn protein, now named amylogenin, is a novel glucose-protein bond, a single beta-glucose residue joined to an arginine residue.
Glycogen metabolism in quail embryo muscle. The role of the glycogenin primer and the intermediate proglycogen.
Cultured quail embryo muscle has proven to be an excellent model system for studying the synthesis of macromolecular glycogen from, and its degradation to, glycogenin, the autocatalytic, self-glucosylating primer for glycogen synthesis. We recently demonstrated that proglycogen, a low-M(r) form of glycogen, is an intermediate in the synthesis. Here we show that proglycogen also functions as an intermediate in macroglycogen degradation and, in one set of circumstances, represents an arrest point in glycogen breakdown, which does not continue to glycogenin. We suggest that in the nutritionally dependent turnover of glycogen in tissues, the molecules cycle between proglycogen and macromolecular glycogen and are not normally degraded to glycogenin. Nevertheless, when this does happen, the released glycogenin is active, capable of re-initiating glycogen synthesis. Under culture conditions where the conversion of proglycogen into glycogenin does take place, the intermediates lying between form a discrete rather than a continuous series, suggestive of a cluster structure for proglycogen and indicating that breakdown is stepwise. Evidence of post-translational modification of glycogenin was obtained by the finding that, in glycogen from cultured muscle, glycogenin is phosphorylated.
Catalytic activities of glycogenin additional to autocatalytic self-glucosylation.
Glycogenin is the autocatalytic, self-glucosylating protein that initiates glycogen synthesis in muscle and other tissues. We have sequenced the cDNA for rabbit muscle glycogenin and expressed and purified the protein in high yield as well as two mutant proteins in which Phe or Thr replaces Tyr-194, the site of glucosylation. While the wild-type protein can self-glucosylate, the mutants cannot, but all three utilize alternative acceptors by intermolecular glucose transfer for which the mutants have altered specificity. Tyr-194 is therefore not essential for the catalytic activity of glycogenin. All three proteins also hydrolyze UDP-glucose to glucose at rates comparable with the rate of self-glucosylation. The hydrolysis is competitive with glucose transfer to p-nitrophenyl alpha-maltoside. Self-glucosylation, glucosylation of other acceptors, and hydrolysis all appear to be catalyzed by the same active center. In the absence of peptidase inhibitors, the homogenous recombinant proteins of M(r) 37,000 break down to equally active species having M(r) 32,000. The kinetics of self-glucosylation catalyzed by the wild-type enzyme suggest that the reaction could be intermolecular rather than, as previously reported, intramolecular. The wild-type recombinant enzyme and native muscle glycogenin, which is phosphorylated, are inhibited quite differently by ATP at physiological concentration.
New and specific nucleoside diphosphate glucose substrates for glycogenin.
Glycogenin, the autocatalytic, self-glucosylating primer for glycogen synthesis by glycogen synthase, is presumed, in vivo, to use UDP-glucose as the source of the glucose residues it adds to itself. When we tested its ability to utilize other nucleoside diphosphate glucoses, it emerged that purine nucleotides are not utilized but two pyrimidine nucleotides are used, in addition to UDP-glucose. These are CDP-glucose and TDP-glucose. CDP-glucose is utilized at 70% of the rate of UDP-glucose. While there is no evidence that CDP-glucose is a natural substrate for glycogenin, it has the advantage over UDP-glucose in that it can be used specifically to detect and assay glycogenin in the presence of glycogen synthase because CDP-glucose, unlike UDP-glucose, is not a substrate for the synthase.
A new look at the biogenesis of glycogen.
The discovery of glycogenin as a self-glucosylating protein that primes glycogen synthesis has significantly increased our understanding of the structure and metabolism of this storage polysaccharide. The amount of glycogenin will influence how much glycogen the cell can store. Therefore, the production of active glycogenin primer in the cell has the potential to be the overall rate-limiting process in glycogen formation, capable of overriding the better understood hormonally controlled mechanisms of protein phosphorylation/dephosphorylation that regulate the activities of glycogen synthase and phosphorylase. There are indications that a similar covalent modification control is also being exerted on glycogenin. Glycogenin has the ability to glucosylate molecules other than itself and to hydrolyze UDPglucose. These are independent of self-glucosylation, so that glycogenin, even when it has completed its priming role and become part of the glycogen molecule, retains its catalytic potential. Another new component of glycogen metabolism has been discovered that may have even greater influence on total glycogen stores than does glycogenin. This is proglycogen, a low molecular mass (approximately 400 kDa) form of glycogen that serves as a stable intermediate on the pathways to and from depot glycogen (macroglycogen, mass 10(7) Da, in muscle). It is suggested that glycogen oscillates, according to glucose supply and energy demand, between the macroglycogen and proglycogen, but not usually the glycogenin, forms. The proportion of proglycogen to macroglycogen varies widely between liver, skeletal muscle, and heart, from 3 to 15% to 50% by weight, respectively. On a molar basis, proglycogen is greatly in excess over macroglycogen in muscle and heart, meaning that if the proglycogen in these tissues could be converted into macroglycogen, they could store much more total glycogen. Discovering the factors that regulate the balance between glycogenin, proglycogen, and macroglycogen may have important implications for the understanding and management of noninsulin-dependent diabetes and for exercise physiology.
The advent of paper chromatography.
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Genetics, ethics, and human values.
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Properties of carbohydrate-free recombinant glycogenin expressed in an Escherichia coli mutant lacking UDP-glucose pyrophosphorylase activity.
Glycogenin, the self-glucosylating primer for glycogen synthesis, is expressed in wild-type E. coli as a recombinant protein in an already partly glucosylated form, owing to the presence of its substrate, UDP-glucose. By using an E. coli mutant strain lacking in UDP-glucose pyrophosphorylase activity, we have succeeded in expressing carbohydrate-free glycogenin (apo-glycogenin) in good yield. When provided with UDPxylose, it autocatalytically adds 1 xylose residue. With UDP-glucose, an average of 8 glucose residues are added. However, release of the self-synthesized maltosaccharide chains with isoamylase reveals them to be a mixture. Chains as long as 11 glucose residues (maltoundecaose) are present. The ability of recombinant apo-glycogenin to self-glucosylate is further proof that a separate enzyme is not needed for the addition of the first glucose residue to Tyr-194 of the protein.
Tyrosine-194 of glycogenin undergoes autocatalytic glucosylation but is not essential for catalytic function and activity.
Glycogenin is the protein primer for glycogen synthesis. By autocatalytic transglucosylation from UDPglucose, it creates a malto-octaose chain attached to its Tyr-194. It has been uncertain whether the autocatalysis includes the addition of the first glucose residue to Tyr-194. We now show this to be the case. However, we also demonstrate, contrary to a claim by others, that Tyr-194 is not necessary for the catalytic function and activity of glycogenin.
Authors and editors of the world unite!
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