A Phosphoenol Pyruvate

Phosphoenolpyruvate.—The mechanisms of hydrolysis of phosphate esters of phosphoenol pyruvic acid (33) have been described in detail, and 0 studies confirm an earlier postulate that attack by water on the cyclic acyl phosphate (34) occurs at phosphorus and not at carbon. In the enolase reaction, the reversible interconversion of 2-phosphoglyceric acid(35) 

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Step 2 of Figure 29.13 Decarboxylation and Phosphorylation Decarboxylation of oxaloacetate, a jB-keto acid, occurs by the typical retro-aldol mechanism like that in step 3 in the citric acid cycle (Figure 29.12), and phosphorylation of the resultant pyruvate enolate ion by GTP occurs concurrently to give phosphoenol-pyruvate. The reaction is catalyzed by phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase. 

An intriguing stress-induced alteration in gene expression occurs in a succulent plant, Mesembryanthemum crystallinum, which switches its primary photosynthetic CO2 fixation pathway from C3 type to CAM (Crassulacean acid metabolism) type upon salt or drought stress (Winter, 1974 Chapter 8). Ostrem et al. (1987) have shown that the pathway switching involves an increase in the level of mRNA encoding phosphoenol-pyruvate carboxylase, a key enzyme in CAM photosynthesis. 

Figure 5 Model of phosphorus (P) deficiency-induced physiological changes associated with the release of P-mobilizing root exudates in cluster roots of white lupin. Solid lines indicate stimulation and dotted lines inhibition of biochemical reaction sequences or mclaholic pathways in response to P deliciency. For a detailed description see Sec. 4.1. Abbreviations SS = sucrose synthase FK = fructokinase PGM = phosphoglueomutase PEP = phosphoenol pyruvate PE PC = PEP-carboxylase MDH = malate dehydrogenase ME = malic enzyme CS = citrate synthase PDC = pyruvate decarboxylase ALDH — alcohol dehydrogenase E-4-P = erythrosc-4-phosphate DAMP = dihydraxyaceConephos-phate APase = acid phosphatase.

The highly electrophilic character of the POf ion would suggest a very unselective phosphorylation behavior. For example, the ratio of alkyl phosphate to inorganic phosphate obtained in hydrolyses of phosphoric esters in water/alcohol mixtures should reflect the molar ratio of water and alcohol. This is indeed found in numerous cases, e.g. in the hydrolysis of phenyl and 4-nitrophenyl phosphate monoanions 97) or of 4-nitrophenyl phosphate dianions 65) at 100 °C in methanol/ water mixtures of various compositions, as also in the solvolysis of the acetyl phosphate dianion at 37 °C 97) or of phosphoenol pyruvate monoanions 82). Calculations of the free energy of the addition reactions of water and ethanol to the POf ion support the energetic similarity of the two reactions 98) (Table 4). 

I, 7-diphosphate.170 1 (f> This tetrose phosphate is involved with phosphoenol pyruvate in the formation of shikimic acid via 3-deoxy-2-keto-D-ara6ino-heptonic acid 7-phosphate and, hence, of aromatic compounds.170(d) A synthesis of the tetrose phosphate has been described.170 1 Aldolase shows a high affinity for the heptulose diphosphate and, compared with that for D-fructose 1,6-diphosphate, the rate of reaction is about 60 %. The enzyme transaldolase, purified 400-fold from yeast, catalyzes the following reversible reaction by transfer of the dihydroxyacetonyl group.l70(o>... 

Deoxy-araWno-heptulosonic acid 7-phosphate (10) is a metabolic intermediate before shikimic acid in the biosynthetic pathway to aromatic amino-acids in bacteria and plants. While (10) is formed enzymically from erythrose 4-phosphate (11) and phosphoenol pyruvate, a one-step chemical synthesis from (11) and oxalacetate has now been published.36 The synthesis takes place at room temperature and neutral pH... 

Feed-forward control is more likely to be focused on a reaction occurring at or near the end of a pathway. Compounds produced early in the pathway act to enhance the activity of the control enzyme and so prevent a back log of accumulated intermediates just before the control point. An example of feed-forward control is the action of glucose-6-phosphate, fructose-1,6-bisphosphate (F-l,6bisP) and phosphoenol pyruvate (PEP), all of which activate the enzyme pyruvate kinase in glycolysis in the liver. 

The oxidative decarboxylation reaction above is part of the TCA cycle and leads to the formation of oxaloacetate, which maybe used to synthesize citrate (with acetyl-CoA) or may be used as a substrate by phosphoenol pyruvate carboxykinase, PEPCK. It should be noted that the phosphoenolpyruvate generated by PEPCK reaction shown above is... 

Hydroxycyclopropanecarboxylic acid phosphate HCP 34 is an analogue of phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) 35 which is metabolized by various enzymes. HCP 34 is a potent competitive inhibitor of enzymes utilizing PEP 35, such as PEP carboxylase, enolase, pyruvate kinase, and probably other enzymes. It is a substantially better inhibitor than phospholactate 36 or phosphoglycolate 37, presumably because of the similarity of its geometric and electronic structures with phosphoenol pyruvate,Eq. 12 [28]. 

Scheme I shows the hydrolysis of a phosphate ester in the presence of tris, which can serve as a phosphate acceptor so that O-phosphoryl-tris is a product as well as P(. It has been shown that in the presence of alcohols such as tris and ethanolamine the rate of substrate utilization is increased, that formation of alcohol exceeds that of phosphate, and that the difference is due to the formation of the O-phosphorylamino alcohol (122, 128). The question was Does the reaction with water and with tris emanate from the Michaelis complex or from a phosphoryl enzyme intermediate (E-P) If the reactions with tris and water stem from a phosphoryl enzyme, the ratio of products tris-phosphate and Pi would be independent of the leaving group RO, but if the reactions stem from the reversible complex containing the leaving group, the ratio of products would depend upon the structure of R. It was found that the ratio of free alcohol to phosphate was 2.39 0.02 for nine different substrates, including esters such as p-cresyl phosphate / -naphthyl phosphate, and phosphoenol pyruvate. This experiment established the occurrence of a phosphoryl enzyme intermediate.

Some of the reactions of PO3- parallel enzymatic reactions promoted by adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Pyruvate kinase catalyzes the equilibration of ATP and pyruvate with adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and phosphoenol pyruvate (11,12). In a formal sense, this reaction resembles the preparations of enol phosphate (eqs. 6 and 7). Cytidine triphosphate synthetase catalyzes the reaction of uridine triphosphate with ammonia to yield cytidine triphosphate (13). In a formal sense, this reaction resembles the replacement of the ester carbonyl group of ethyl acetate by the nitrogen of aniline (eq. 8). 

The shikimate biosynthetic pathway occurs in bacteria, plants, and fungi (including yeasts) and is a major entry into the biosynthesis of primary and secondary metabolites, for example aromatic amino acids, menaquinones, vitamins, and antibiotics [1], Starting from erythrose-4-phosphate (E4P) and phosphoenol-pyruvate... 

The aromatic amino acids, phenylalanine, tryptophan, and tyrosine, are all made from a common intermediate chorismic acid. Chorismic acid is made by the condensation of erythrose-4-phosphate and phosphoenol pyruvate, followed by dephosphorylation and ring closure, dehydration and reduction to give shikimic acid. Shikimic acid is phosphorylated by ATP and condenses with another phosphoenol pyruvate and is then dephosphorylated to give chorismic acid. 

Polyphosphate kinase has been found able to phosphorylate nucleoside diphosphates to give nucleoside triphosphates, using PolyP as a phosphate donor. Therefore, the possibility of using PolyP and polyphosphate kinase instead of phosphoenol pyruvate and pyruvate kinase for enzymatic oligosaccharide synthesis was examined, because PolyP is quite cheap when compared with phosphoenol pyruvate (Noguchi and Shiba, 1998 Shiba et al, 2000). Attempts were made to synthesize N-acetyllactosamine (Gal (f> 1-4) GlcNAc) using the nucleoside diphosphate kinase-like activity of polyphosphate kinase, where UDP-Glc pyrophosphorylase and UDP-Glc 4-epimerase catalyse the synthesis of UDP-Glc from... 

This key intermediate has given its name to Nature s general route to aromatic compounds and many other related six-membeied ring compounds the shikimic acid pathway. This pathway contains some of the most interesting reactions (from a chemist s point of view) in biology. It starts with an aldol reaction between phosphoenol pyruvate as the nucleophilic enol component and the C4 sugar erythrose 4-phosphate as the electrophilic aldehyde. 

Scheme 5.2. The four main groups of aldolase reactions classified by their donor substrate (1) Dihydroxyacetone phosphate (DHAP)- dependent aldolases, (2) phosphoenol pyruvate (PEP)-and pyruvate-dependent aldolases, (3) 2-deoxyribose-5-phosphate aldolase (DERA), a member of the acetaldehyde-dependent aldolases, and (4) glycine-dependent aldolases (GDA).

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