Amino acids, phosphorylation dephosphorylation

Phosphorylation of serine, threonine, or tyrosine residues by protein kinases, and their dephosphorylation by protein phosphatases, are critical mechanisms by which information-relaying signals are transduced in eukaryotic cells. Although protein kinases are by no means an eukaryotic invention (see Leonard et al., 1998 for details), the large numbers of protein kinases in eukaryotes (118 in. S . cerevisiae and 435 in C. elegans (Chervitz et al., 1998)) reflect their importance in a multitude of diverse cellular processes. Eukaryotes have evolved signaling pathways that exploit the dual state of an amino acid, dependent on its state of phosphorylation, both as a signaling mechanism and as a means of colocalization of molecules within multimolecular complexes. 

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). 

The most common form of such modifications is phosphorylation and dephosphorylation of the hydroxyl group of a serine, threonine or tyrosine amino acid in the protein. The reactions are catalysed by kinases (protein kinases) or phosphatases (protein phosphatases), respectively. 

Experiments with rats have shown that the branched-chain a-keto acid dehydrogenase complex is regulated by covalent modification in response to the content of branched-chain amino acids in the diet. With little or no excess dietary intake of branched-chain amino acids, the enzyme complex is phosphorylated and thereby inactivated by a protein kinase. Addition of excess branched-chain amino acids to the diet results in dephosphoiylation and consequent activation of the enzyme. Recall that the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex is subject to similar regulation by phosphorylation and dephosphorylation (p. 621). 

The control of glycogen phosphorylase by the phosphorylation-dephosphorylation cycle was discovered in 1955 by Edmond Fischer and Edwin Krebs50 and was at first regarded as peculiar to glycogen breakdown. However, it is now abundantly clear that similar reactions control most aspects of metabolism.51 Phosphorylation of proteins is involved in control of carbohydrate, lipid, and amino acid metabolism in control of muscular contraction, regulation of photosynthesis in plants,52 transcription of genes,51 protein syntheses,53 and cell division and in mediating most effects of hormones. 

Covalent modification by phosphorylation and dephosphorylation of hydroxyl groups on amino acid side chains. 

Cobb and Novotny (7) obtained improved separations using C)8 microcolumns as a method for separating quantities on the order of 4 picomoles of tryptic peptides of phosphorylated and dephosphorylated /3-casein. Figure 4 shows two peaks with different retention times, corresponding to the phosphorylated and dephosphorylated forms of the same peptide. The rest of the peptide map is similar. Using this microcolumn, phosphorylation of a single amino acid on a protein can be detected. The method is reproducible with standard deviations smaller than 2%. Characterization of bovine /3-lg tryptic peptides by RP-HPLC on a Nucleosil Cl 8 column was also reported (123). 

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. 

PAH, a nonheme iron-containing enzyme, is a member of a larger BI Independent amino acid hydroxylase family. In addition to PAH, the enzyme family includes tyrosine hydroxylase and tryptophan hydroxylase. The enzymes in this family participate in critical metabolic steps and are tissue specific. PAH catabolizes excess dietary PA and synthesizes tyrosine. In adrenal and nervous tissue, tyrosine hydroxylase catalyzes the initial steps in the synthesis of dihydrox-yphenylalanine. In the brain, tryptophan is converted to 5-hydroxytryptophan as the first step of serotonin synthesis. Consequently, these enzymes are highly regulated not only by their expression in different tissues but also by reversible phosphorylation of a critical serine residue found in regulatory domains of the three enzymes. Since all three enzymes are phosphorylated and dephosphorylated by different kinases and phosphatases in response to the need for the different synthetic products, it is not unexpected that the exact regulatory signal for each member of the enzyme family is unique. 

Ciclosporin is of fungal origin it is a cyclic peptide composed of 11, in part atypical, amino acids. Therefore, orally administered ciclosporin is not degraded by gastrointestinal proteases. InT-helper cells, it inhibits the production of interleukin-2 by interfering at the level of transcriptional regulation. Normally, nuclear factor of activated T cells, (NFAT) promotes the expression of interleu-kin-2. This requires dephosphorylation of the precursor, phosphorylated NFAT, by the phosphatase calcineurin, enabling NFAT to enter the cell nucleus from the cytosol. Ciclosporin binds to the protein cyclophilin in the cell interior the complex inhibits calcineurin, hence the production of interleukin-2. 

The molecular basis for regulation of enzymatic activity through phosphorylation and dephosphorylation has been established in many enzyme systems (29). The significance of these reactions in histones, ribosomal proteins and KNA polymerase is not known. In an attempt to establish the specificity of the cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinases, the structure of several substrates have been determined (30). The data indicate that the sequence around the phosphorylated serine residue all contain two basic amino acids separated by no more than two residues from the N-terminal of the susceptible serine (e.g. -Arg-Arg-X-Y-Ser-). 

The final step of acid secretion is mediated by H /K -ATPase (E.C. 3.6.1.3.), the so-called gastric proton pump. Shull and Lindgrel reported that this enzyme consists of 1,033 amino acids with a combined molecular weight of 114,012 [9]. It shows about 62% homology of the amino acid sequence of NaVK -ATPase. Both enzymes are phosphorylated by ATP and potassium binding causes dephosphorylation and a conformational change in the protein. In contrast to Na /K -ATPase, which is widely distributed in all mammalian cells, HVK -ATPase is predominantly located at the apical membrane of the parietal cell, although a similar enzyme has... 

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