Acetyl coenzyme carbons

As we saw m Chapter 20 thioesters are more reactive than ordinary esters toward nucleophilic acyl substitution They also contain a greater proportion of enol at equilib rmm Both properties are apparent m the properties of acetyl coenzyme A In some reactions it is the carbonyl group of acetyl coenzyme A that reacts m others it is the a carbon atom... 

A second molecule of acetyl coenzyme A reacts with carbon dioxide (actually bicarbonate ion at biological pH) to give malonyl coenzyme A... 

The four carbon atoms of the butanoyl group originate m two molecules of acetyl coenzyme A Carbon dioxide assists the reaction but is not incorporated into the prod uct The same carbon dioxide that is used to convert one molecule of acetyl coenzyme A to malonyl coenzyme A is regenerated m the decarboxylation step that accompanies carbon-carbon bond formation... 

Carbon-carbon bond formation then occurs between the ketone carbonyl of acetoacetyl coenzyme A and the a carbon of a molecule of acetyl coenzyme A... 

Chemists and biochemists And it convenient to divide the principal organic substances present m cells into four mam groups carbohydrates proteins nucleic acids and lipids Structural differences separate carbo hydrates from proteins and both of these are structurally distinct from nucleic acids Lipids on the other hand are characterized by a physical property their solubility m nonpolar solvents rather than by their structure In this chapter we have examined lipid molecules that share a common biosynthetic origin m that all their carbons are derived from acetic acid (acetate) The form m which acetate occurs m many of these processes is a thioester called acetyl coenzyme A... 

Acetyl coenzyme A is the biosynthetic precursor to the fatty acids, which most often occur naturally as esters Fats and oils are glycerol esters of long chain carboxylic acids Typically these chains are unbranched and contain even numbers of carbon atoms... 

IS the key carbon-carbon bond forming step Acetyl coenzyme A (Section 26 1) A thiol ester abbreviated as... 

Iron Sulfur Compounds. Many molecular compounds (18—20) are known in which iron is tetrahedraHy coordinated by a combination of thiolate and sulfide donors. Of the 10 or more stmcturaHy characterized classes of Fe—S compounds, the four shown in Figure 1 are known to occur in proteins. The mononuclear iron site REPLACE occurs in the one-iron bacterial electron-transfer protein mbredoxin. The [2Fe—2S] (10) and [4Fe—4S] (12) cubane stmctures are found in the 2-, 4-, and 8-iron ferredoxins, which are also electron-transfer proteins. The [3Fe—4S] voided cubane stmcture (11) has been found in some ferredoxins and in the inactive form of aconitase, the enzyme which catalyzes the stereospecific hydration—rehydration of citrate to isocitrate in the Krebs cycle. In addition, enzymes are known that contain either other types of iron sulfur clusters or iron sulfur clusters that include other metals. Examples include nitrogenase, which reduces N2 to NH at a MoFe Sg homocitrate cluster carbon monoxide dehydrogenase, which assembles acetyl-coenzyme A (acetyl-CoA) at a FeNiS site and hydrogenases, which catalyze the reversible reduction of protons to hydrogen gas. 

As the principal thiolester of intermediary metabolism, acetyl coenzyme A is involved in two-carbon biosynthetic and degradative steps. An essential component is the vitamin pantithenic acid, which provides the sulfur atom for the thiolester formation. 

Most fuel molecules enter the pathway as acetyl coenzyme A (CoA), but the carbon skeletons of the amino acids may also enter the TCA cycle at various points. 

Butyric acid is one of the simplest fatty acids. Fatty acids, which are the building units of fats and oils, are natural compounds of carbon chains with a carboxyl group (-COOH) at one end. Most natural fatty acids have an unbranched carbon chain and contain an even number of carbon atoms because during biosynthesis they are built in two carbon units from acetyl coenzyme A (CoA). Butyric acid is an unsaturated fatty acid, which means all carbon-carbon bonds are single bonds. Common names for fatty acids stem from their natural sources. In addition to butyric acid, some other common saturated fatty acids include lauric acid, palmitic acid, and stearic acid. Lauric acid was first discovered in Lauraceae (Laurus nobilis) seeds, palmitic oil was prepared from palm oil, and stearic acid was discovered in animal fat and gets its name from the Greek word stear for tallow. 

The oxidation of aciy lic acid can be rationalized in terms of the endogenous catabolism of propionic acid, in which acrylyl coenzyme A is an intermediate. This pathway is analogous with fatty acid 3-oxidation, common to all species and, unlike the corresponding pathway in plants, does not involve vitamin 8,2. 3-Hydroxypropionic acid has been found as an intennediate in the metabolism of acrylic acid in vitro in rat liver and mitochondria (Finch Frederick, 1992). The CO2 excreted derives from the carboxyl carbon, while carbon atoms 2 and 3 are converted to acetyl coenzyme A, which participates in a variety of reactions. The oxidation of acrylic acid is catalysed by enzymes in a variety of tissues (Black Finch, 1995). In mice, the greatest activity was found in kidney, which was five times more active than liver and 50 times more active than skin (Black et al., 1993). 

Cellular respiration occurs in three major stages (Fig. 16-1). In the first, organic fuel molecules—glucose, fatty acids, and some amino acids—are oxidized to yield two-carbon fragments in the form of the acetyl group of acetyl-coenzyme A (acetyl-CoA). In the sec-... 

Pyruvic acid Coenzyme A Oxidized form of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide Acetyl coenzyme A Reduced form of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide Carbon Proton dioxide... 

Ethanoic acid is activated for biosynthesis by combination with the thiol, coenzyme A (CoASH, Figure 18-7) to give the thioester, ethanoyl (acetyl) coenzyme A (CH3COSC0A). You may recall that the metabolic degradation of fats also involves this coenzyme (Section 18-8F) and it is tempting to assume that fatty acid biosynthesis is simply the reverse of fatty acid metabolism to CH3COSCoA. However, this is not quite the case. In fact, it is a general observation in biochemistry that primary metabolites are synthesized by different routes from those by which they are metabolized (for example, compare the pathways of carbon in photosynthesis and metabolism of carbohydrates, Sections 20-9,10). 

In the early 1940s, before the discovery of 14C and when acetyl-coenzyme A was unknown, two research groups used the stable isotope 13C and mass spectrometers to study carbon flow in the TCA cycle. Pyruvate and 13C02 were added to pigeon liver preparations to form carboxy-labeled oxaloacetate. Malonate was added to stop the TCA cycle at succinate. The expected result was that half of the 13C would be found in succinate and the other half in C02 (fig. 13.10). 

Ogston s contribution led to an interesting extension of concepts concerning stereochemistry of enzyme action. Compounds of the type Ca2bd are termed prochiral, and it is recognized that an enzyme that either synthesizes such a compound or uses it as a substrate nearly always does so stereospecifically. In the case of citrate synthase, for example, it is inherently likely that the planar carbonyl carbon of oxaloacetate lies flat on an enzyme surface and that only one side of the atom is available for attack by acetyl-coenzyme A. 

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