Ammonia reaction with glutamine

This enzyme [EC 4.1.3.27] catalyzes the reaction of chorismate with glutamine to generate anthranilate, pyruvate, and glutamate. In certain species, this enzyme is part of a multifunctional protein together with one or more other components of the system for the biosynthesis of tryptophan (Le., indole-3-glycerol-phosphate synthase, anthranilate phosphoribosyltransferase, tryptophan synthase, and phosphoribosylanthranilate isomerase). The anthranilate synthase that is present in these complexes has been reported to be able to utilize either glutamine or ammonia as the nitrogen source. However, it has also been reported that when anthranilate synthase is separated from this complex, only ammonia can serve as a substrate. 

A second ammonium ion is incorporated into glutamate to form glutamine by the action of glutamine synthetase. This amidation is driven by the hydrolysis of ATP. ATP participates directly in the reaction by phosphorylating the side chain of glutamate to form an acyl-phosphate intermediate, which then reacts with ammonia to form glutamine. 

The rise in glutamine level in hyperammonemia is highly significant. The formation of glutamic acid from a-ketoglutarate, and ammonia and its further conversion to glutamine by its reaction with ammonia, serves to regulate the level of ammonia in the blood, albeit to only a limited extent. Thus the initial effect of a defect of urea synthesis in the body... 

During the enzymic synthesis of carbamyl phosphate (34), two molecules of ATP are involved for every molecule of (34) that is synthesized. One molecule of ATP reacts with bicarbonate to form a mixed anhydride of orthophosphoric and carbonic acids, while the second molecule of ATP phosphorylates the carbamate once it is formed. The half-life of the mixed anhydride is short (two minutes or less), but it can be trapped chemically, and moreover, 0 is transferred from bicarbonate to orthophosphate during this reaction. P P -Diadenosine 5 -polypentaphosphate is an inhibitor of the enzyme from E. coli, while the equivalent diadenosine pyro- and polyhexa-phosphates are not. It has been suggested that the two molecules of ATP and the bicarbonate bind at the active site of the enzyme as shown in (35). Once the enzyme-bound mixed anhydride has been formed, this reacts with glutamine or ammonia to generate the enzyme-bound carbamate, which is finally phosphorylated by the second molecule of ATP (Scheme 10). 

The mechanism of action of glutamine synthetase has been extensively studied, and both the bacterial and mammalian enzymes were reviewed in Volume X of this series (83, 84). Many experimental approaches have been applied to the question of the chemical activation of the y-carboxyl group of glutamate and its reaction with ammonia. All of these experiments supported the stepwise chemical mechanism outlined in reactions (24a) and (24b) (8J),... 

Azaserine, a glutamine antagonist," is known to inhibit the NAD synthetase reaction in which nicotinic acid adenine dinucleotide is converted into NAD with glutamine or ammonia as the nitrogen donor. ° When azaserine or azaleucine was fed to Ricinus communis plants followed by [6- C]quinolinic acid, a marked decrease in incorporation of radioactivity into ricinine was observed with azaleucine, less so with azaserine." Both azaserine and azaleucine were found also to inhibit the incorporation of [6- " C]quinolinic acid into pyridine nucleotide cycle intermediates [in the case of azaserine the conversion of nicotinic acid dinucleotide into nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD ) was apparently inhibited]. 

In the strict absence of ammonia and with substrate concentrations of ATP, glutamine synthetase catalyzes the formation of 5-oxoproline from glutamate [Eq. (5)]. The rate of 5-oxoproline formation is slow, about 0.1% that of the overall synthesis reaction with L-glutamate and ammonia (Meister, 1974). 

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