Allosteric enzymes negative allosterism

Regulatory or allosteric enzymes like enzyme 1 are, in some instances, regulated by activation. That is, whereas some effector molecules such as F exert negative effects on enzyme activity, other effectors show stimulatory, or positive, influences on activity. 

Citrate synthase is the first step in this metabolic pathway, and as stated the reaction has a large negative AG°. As might be expected, it is a highly regulated enzyme. NADH, a product of the TCA cycle, is an allosteric inhibitor of citrate synthase, as is succinyl-CoA, the product of the fifth step in the cycle (and an acetyl-CoA analog). 

Acetyl-CoA carboxylase is an allosteric enzyme and is activated by citrate, which increases in concentration in the well-fed state and is an indicator of a plentiful supply of acetyl-CoA. Citrate converts the enzyme from an inactive dimer to an active polymeric form, having a molecular mass of several milhon. Inactivation is promoted by phosphorylation of the enzyme and by long-chain acyl-CoA molecules, an example of negative feedback inhibition by a product of a reaction. Thus, if acyl-CoA accumulates because it is not esterified quickly enough or because of increased lipolysis or an influx of free fatty acids into the tissue, it will automatically reduce the synthesis of new fatty acid. Acyl-CoA may also inhibit the mitochondrial tricarboxylate transporter, thus preventing activation of the enzyme by egress of citrate from the mitochondria into the cytosol. 

A substrate or effector that binds preferentially to the R state increases the concentration of the R state at equilibrium. This can only happen if, in the absence of substrate or effector, the enzyme is predominantly in the T state. If the enzyme were predominantly in the R state to begin with, it would already have increased affinity for the substrate and there would be no allosteric or cooperative effects. Consequently, the MWC model cannot account for negative cooperativity (but this is rare anyway). 

The fact that ATP and CTP bind to the same site follows from the observation that adding ATP to the inhibited enzyme by CTP reduces or reverses the inhibition, presumably because ATP competes with CTP for the same site. The fact that CTP binds to an allosteric site (i.e., it is not a competitive inhibitor) follows from the so-called desensitization effect. Addition of mercurials [e.g., p-mercuribenzoate (PMB)] reduces or eliminates the inhibition by CTP. However, it has no effect on the enzymatic activity of ATCase, presumably because the mercurials affect the regulatory subunits but not the catalytic site. As for the mechanism of cooperativity (both positive and negative), it is known that CTP does induce changes in the quaternary structure of the enzyme. 

Enzymes that are subject to allosteric regulation by either positive or negative effectors exhibit cooperativity. 

Other heterotropic allosteric enzymes respond to an activator by an increase in Fmax with little change in if0i5 (Fig. 6-29c). A negative modulator (an inhibitor) may produce a more sigmoid substrate-saturation curve,... 

FIGURE 6-29 Substrate-activity curves for representative allosteric enzymes. Three examples of complex responses of allosteric enzymes to their modulators, (a) The sigmoid curve of a homotropic enzyme, in which the substrate also serves as a positive (stimulatory) modulator, or activator. Note the resemblance to the oxygen-saturation curve of hemoglobin (see Fig. 5-12). (b) The effects of a positive modulator (+) and a negative modulator (—) on an allosteric enzyme in which K0 5 is altered without a change in Zmax. The central curve shows the substrate-activity relationship without a modulator, (c) A less common type of modulation, in which Vmax is altered and /C0.sis nearly constant. 

When fructose 2,6-bisphosphate binds to its allosteric site on PFK-1, it increases that enzyme s affinity for its substrate, fructose 6-phosphate, and reduces its affinity for the allosteric inhibitors ATP and citrate. At the physiological concentrations of its substrates ATP and fructose 6-phosphate and of its other positive and negative effectors (ATP, AMP, citrate), PFK-1 is virtually inactive in the absence of fructose 2,6-bisphosphate. Fructose 2,6-bisphosphate activates PFK-1 and stimulates glycolysis in liver and, at the same time, inhibits FBPase-1, thereby slowing gluconeogenesis. 

Allosteric regulation can be considerably more complex. An example is the remarkable set of allosteric controls exerted on glutamine synthetase of E. coli (Fig. 22-6). Six products derived from glutamine serve as negative feedback modulators of the enzyme, and the overall effects of these and other modulators are more than additive. Such regulation is called concerted inhibition. 

Allosteric enzymes are regulated by molecules called effectors (also modifiers) that bind noncovalently at a site other than the active site. These enzymes are composed of multiple subunits, and the regula tory site that binds the effector may be located on a subunit that is not itself catalytic. The presence of an allosteric effector can alter the affinity of the enzyme for its substrate, or modify the maximal cat alytic activity of the enzyme, or both. Effectors that inhibit enzyme activity are termed negative effectors, whereas those that increase enzyme activity are called positive effectors. Allosteric enzymes usually contain multiple subunits, and frequently catalyze the commit ted step early in a pathway. 

This first enzyme, whose activity is modulated by an end-product, is an allosteric enzyme where, in addition to the active site, it has another space specific for binding the ligand which modulates the active site. Some negative modulators inhibit, as shown above with isoleucine on threonine hydratase, while others may stimulate or positively modulate the enzyme. Some enzymes have only one modulator and are called monovalent, while others have have several and are called polyvalent modulators. Moreover, some allosteric enzymes have both negative and positive modulators. Figure S.33 illustrates some patterns of allosteric modulation. The advantage of these control systems is that cellular materials are economically used. 

Allosteric enzymes do not follow the Michaelis-Menten kinetic relationships between substrate concentration Fmax and Km because their kinetic behaviour is greatly altered by variations in the concentration of the allosteric modulator. Generally, homotrophic enzymes show sigmoidal behaviour with reference to the substrate concentration, rather than the rectangular hyperbolae shown in classical Michaelis-Menten kinetics. Thus, to increase the rate of reaction from 10 per cent to 90 per cent of maximum requires an 81-fold increase in substrate concentration, as shown in Fig. 5.34a. Positive cooperativity is the term used to describe the substrate concentration-activity curve which is sigmoidal an increase in the rate from 10 to 90 per cent requires only a nine-fold increase in substrate concentration (Fig. 5.346). Negative cooperativity is used to describe the flattening of the plot (Fig. 5.34c) and requires requires over 6000-fold increase to increase the rate from 10 to 90 per cent of maximum rate. 

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