Acetyl kinase

Whereas sodium participates in metabolism mainly by its cationic properties, potassium is more directly involved in metabolism. Potassium stimulates the activity of a specific enzyme— pyruvic kinase—and is required for the phosphorylation of fructose-1-phosphate to fructose-1,6-diphosphate. Similarly, potassium stimulates acetyl kinase activity. Many alterations in the bioenergetic pathways of the cell are accompanied by changes in the intracellular concentration of potassium. After insulin administration, some of the potassium of the extracellular fluid is transferred inside the cells. During oxidative phosphorylation, potassium accumulates inside the mitochondria, and dinitrophenol uncouples the ion penetration and the oxidation. 

Acetyl kinase. In contrast with the acetyl kinase of E. coli, the enzyme of P. shermanii is equally active with propionate and acetate, but in the fermentation it most likely catalyzes the formation of acetate (Pawelkiewicz and Legocki, 1963). The Km for propionate and acetate is 0.1 and 0.14 mM, respectively. 

Three moles of ATP are derived from 1.5 moles of glucose in the course of glycolysis. Then one those (pyruvate) is oxidized to CO2 and acetyl-P, and acetate and ATP are formed from the latter in the presence of ADP and acetyl kinase. Two other molecules of pyruvate enter the cycle. Cytochrome b is involved in the anaerobic transport of two electrons from NADH to fumarate (Cox et al., 1970), and 2 moles of ATP are formed by oxidative phosphorylation (Van Gent-Ruijters et al., 1975). If two electrons are transported from lactate or glycerol-3-phosphate to fumarate, the formation of 1 mole of ATP is postulated. 

Pyruvate kinase possesses allosteric sites for numerous effectors. It is activated by AMP and fructose-1,6-bisphosphate and inhibited by ATP, acetyl-CoA, and alanine. (Note that alanine is the a-amino acid counterpart of the a-keto acid, pyruvate.) Furthermore, liver pyruvate kinase is regulated by covalent modification. Flormones such as glucagon activate a cAMP-dependent protein kinase, which transfers a phosphoryl group from ATP to the enzyme. The phos-phorylated form of pyruvate kinase is more strongly inhibited by ATP and alanine and has a higher for PEP, so that, in the presence of physiological levels of PEP, the enzyme is inactive. Then PEP is used as a substrate for glucose synthesis in the pathway (to be described in Chapter 23), instead... 

Acetyl-CoA is a potent allosteric effector of glycolysis and gluconeogenesis. It allosterically inhibits pyruvate kinase (as noted in Chapter 19) and activates pyruvate carboxylase. Because it also allosterically inhibits pyruvate dehydrogenase (the enzymatic link between glycolysis and the TCA cycle), the cellular fate of pyruvate is strongly dependent on acetyl-CoA levels. A rise in... 

FIGURE 25.4 Models of the acetyl-CoA carboxylase polypeptide, with phosphorylation sites indicated, along with the protein kinases responsible. Phosphorylation at Ser " is primarily responsible for decreasing the affinity for citrate. 

Figure 2. Mechanism of PDH. The three different subunits of the PDH complex in the mitochondrial matrix (E, pyruvate decarboxylase E2, dihydrolipoamide acyltrans-ferase Ej, dihydrolipoamide dehydrogenase) catalyze the oxidative decarboxylation of pyruvate to acetyl-CoA and CO2. E, decarboxylates pyruvate and transfers the acetyl-group to lipoamide. Lipoamide is linked to the group of a lysine residue to E2 to form a flexible chain which rotates between the active sites of E, E2, and E3. E2 then transfers the acetyl-group from lipoamide to CoASH leaving the lipoamide in the reduced form. This in turn is oxidized by E3, which is an NAD-dependent (low potential) flavoprotein, completing the catalytic cycle. PDH activity is controlled in two ways by product inhibition by NADH and acetyl-CoA formed from pyruvate (or by P-oxidation), and by inactivation by phosphorylation of Ej by a specific ATP-de-pendent protein kinase associated with the complex, or activation by dephosphorylation by a specific phosphoprotein phosphatase. The phosphatase is activated by increases in the concentration of Ca in the matrix. The combination of insulin with its cell surface receptor activates PDH by activating the phosphatase by an unknown mechanism.

Figure 21-6. Regulation of acetyl-CoA carboxylase by phosphorylation/dephosphorylation.The enzyme is inactivated by phosphorylation by AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), which in turn is phosphorylated and activated by AMP-activated protein kinase kinase (AMPKK). Glucagon (and epinephrine), after increasing cAMP, activate this latter enzyme via cAMP-dependent protein kinase. The kinase kinase enzyme is also believed to be activated by acyl-CoA. Insulin activates acetyl-CoA carboxylase, probably through an "activator" protein and an insulin-stimulated protein kinase.

Acetate kinase is phosphorylated by acetyl phosphate and it has been shown that the phosphoenzyme can synthesise ATP from ADP, and acetyl phosphate from acetate. The mode of decomposition of carbamyl phosphate in aqueous solution is pH dependent and can proceed with either the production of ammonia and carbon dioxide (equation 1), or cyanate (equation 2). No cyanate could be detected during the hydrolysis... 

Rahmatullah, M. and Roche, T.E. (1987) The catalytic requirements for reduction and acetylation of protein X and the related regulation of various forms of resolved pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase. Journal of Biological Chemistry 262, 10265-10271. 

Fig. 5 Proposed signal transduction mechanisms that stimulate the pheromone biosynthetic pathway in Helicoverpa zea and Bombyx mori. It is proposed that PBAN binds to a G protein-coupled receptor present in the cell membrane that upon PBAN binding will induce a receptor-activated calcium channel to open causing an influx of extracellular calcium. This calcium binds to calmodulin and in the case of B. mori will directly stimulate a phosphatase that will dephosphorylate and activate a reductase in the biosynthetic pathway. In H. zea the calcium-calmodulin will activate adenylate cyclase to produce cAMP that will then act through kinases and/or phosphatases to stimulate acetyl-CoA carboxylase in the biosynthetic pathway...

The PDHC catalyzes the irreversible conversion of pyruvate to acetyl-CoA (Fig. 42-3) and is dependent on thiamine and lipoic acid as cofactors (see Ch. 35). The complex has five enzymes three subserving a catalytic function and two subserving a regulatory role. The catalytic components include PDH, El dihydrolipoyl trans-acetylase, E2 and dihydrolipoyl dehydrogenase, E3. The two regulatory enzymes include PDH-specific kinase and phospho-PDH-specific phosphatase. The multienzyme complex contains nine protein subunits, including... 

PDH is a multi-enzyme complex consisting of three separate enzyme units pyruvate decarboxylase, transacetylase and dihydrolipoyl dehydrogenase. Serine residues within the decarboxylase subunit are the target for a kinase which causes inhibition of the PDH the inhibition can be rescued by a phosphatase. The PDH kinase (PDH-K) is itself activated, and the phosphatase reciprocally inhibited, by NADH and acetyl-CoA. Figure 3.12(a and b) show the role and control of PDH. 

There are many examples of phosphorylation/dephosphorylation control of enzymes found in carbohydrate, fat and amino acid metabolism and most are ultimately under the control of a hormone induced second messenger usually, cytosolic cyclic AMP (cAMP). PDH is one of the relatively few mitochondrial enzymes to show covalent modification control, but PDH kinase and PDH phosphatase are controlled primarily by allosteric effects of NADH, acetyl-CoA and calcium ions rather than cAMP (see Table 6.6). 

Hanai, N., Dohi, T., Nores, G. A., and Hakomori, S. (1988). A novel ganglioside, de-N-acetyl-GM3 (II3NeuNH2LacCer), acting as a strong promoter for epidermal growth factor receptor kinase and as a stimulator for cell growth. /. Biol. Chem. 263, 6296-6301. 

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