Allosteric sites

NMD A receptors are selectively activated by A/-methyl-D-aspartate (NMD A) (182). NMD A receptor activation also requires glycine or other co-agonist occupation of an allosteric site. NMDAR-1, -2A, -2B, -2C, and -2D are the five NMD A receptor subunits known. Two forms of NMDAR-1 are generated by alternative splicing. NMDAR-1 proteins form homomeric ionotropic receptors in expression systems and may do so m situ in the CNS. Functional responses, however, are markedly augmented by co-expression of a NMDAR-2 and NMDAR-1 subunits. The kinetic and pharmacological properties of the NMD A receptor are influenced by the particular subunit composition. 

Allosteric site Site on the enzyme other than the active site to which a nonsubstate compound binds. This may result in a conformational change at the active site so that the normal substrate cannot bind to it. 

Inhibition The decrease of the rate of an enzyme-catalyzed reaction by a chemical compound including substrate analogues. Such inhibition may be competitive with the substrate (binding at die active site of die enzyme) or non-competitive (binding at an allosteric site). 

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... 

Two particularly interesting aspects of the pyruvate carboxylase reaction are (a) allosteric activation of the enzyme by acyl-coenzyme A derivatives and (b) compartmentation of the reaction in the mitochondrial matrix. The carboxy-lation of biotin requires the presence (at an allosteric site) of acetyl-coenzyme A or other acylated coenzyme A derivatives. The second half of the carboxylase reaction—the attack by pyruvate to form oxaloacetate—is not affected by CoA derivatives. 

Figure 6.10c, this indicates a possible allosteric mechanism whereby a saturation of binding to an allosteric site is operative. This is dealt with further on in this chapter. 

Fluorouracil (5-fluorouracil, 5-FU, Fig. 5) represents an early example of rational drag design in that it originated from the observation that tumor cells, especially from gut, incorporate radiolabeled uracil more efficiently into DNA than normal cells. 5-FU is a fluorinated pyrimidine analog that must be activated metabolically. In the cells 5-FU is converted to 5-fluoro-2>deoxyuridine-monophosphate (FdUMP). This metabolite inhibits thymidilate synthase which catalyses the conversion of uridylate (dUMP) to thymidilate (dTMP) whereby methylenetetrahydrofo-late plays the role of the carbon-donating cofactor. The reduced folate cofactor occupies an allosteric site of... 

Di Marco S, Volpari C, Tomei L, Altamura S, Harper S, Narjes F, Koch U, Rowley M, De Francesco R, Mighaccio G, Card A (2005) Interdomain communication in hepatitis C virus polymerase abolished by small molecule inhibitors bound to a novel allosteric site. J Biol Chem 280 29765-29770... 

The lack of structural similarity between a feedback inhibitor and the substrate for the enzyme whose activity it regulates suggests that these effectors are not isosteric with a substrate but allosteric ( occupy another space ). Jacques Monod therefore proposed the existence of allosteric sites that are physically distinct from the catalytic site. Allosteric enzymes thus are those whose activity at the active site may be modulated by the presence of effectors at an allosteric site. This hypothesis has been confirmed by many lines of evidence, including x-ray crystallography and site-directed mutagenesis, demonstrating the existence of spatially distinct active and allosteric sites on a variety of enzymes. 

Bicarbonate as a source of CO2 is required in the initial reaction for the carboxylation of acetyl-CoA to mal-onyl-CoA in the presence of ATP and acetyl-CoA carboxylase. Acetyl-CoA carboxylase has a requirement for the vitamin biotin (Figure 21-1). The enzyme is a multienzyme protein containing a variable number of identical subunits, each containing biotin, biotin carboxylase, biotin carboxyl carrier protein, and transcarboxylase, as well as a regulatory allosteric site. The reaction takes place in two steps (1) carboxylation of biotin involving ATP and (2) transfer of the carboxyl to acetyl-CoA to form malonyl-CoA. 

Several drugs, the most well-known being local anesthetics and histrionicotoxin (HTX) (28), bind to an allosteric site on the AChR (relative to the agonist binding site). Biochemically, this site is identified by high affinity binding of [ H]Hj2 HTX (Table I). It may be located at the ion channel and coordinates between several of... 

The first and best-studied allosteric site on GPCRs is that on the muscarinic receptor [9,10,12,19,20]. For the five subtypes of these receptors that have been cloned and pharmacologically defined as Mi to M5, various agents have been identified that allosterically regulate selectively these... 

A growing number of other diverse compounds have also been shown to bind to an allosteric site on the muscarinic receptors. Among them are pirenzepine (highly selective for Mi receptor), lidocaine and verapamil (ion channel blockers), tacrine (anticholinesterase compound), batrachotoxin, and strychnine (glycine receptor antagonist) [25,31-35],... 

Waelbroek M. Identification of drugs competing with <5 -tubocurarine for an allosteric site on cardiac muscarinic receptors. Mol Pharmacol 1994 46 685-692. 

Howard MJ, Hughes RJ, Motulsky HJ, Mullen MD, Insel PA. Interactions of amiloride with alpha- and beta-adrenergic receptors amiloride reveals an allosteric site on alpha 2-adrenergic receptors. Mol Pharmacol 1987 32 53-58. 

Waelbroeck M, Robberecht P, De Neef P, Christophe J. Effects of verapamil on the binding properties of rat heart muscarinic receptors evidence for an allosteric site. Biochem Biophys Res Commun 1984 121 340-345. 

Potential allosteric sites that offer additional avenues for drug interactions with functionally critical binding pockets. 

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