Aspartate aminotransferase pyridoxal phosphate

Aspartate aminotransferase 5mM phosphate, pH 5.5 lOOmM phosphate, pH 5.5 or 1 mg/ml pyridoxal phosphate... 

Carbonic anhydrase Pyridoxal phosphate (PLP) Amino groups Aspartate aminotransferase... 

FIGURE 14.22 Glutamate aspartate aminotransferase, an enzyme conforming to a double-displacement bisnbstrate mechanism. Glutamate aspartate aminotransferase is a pyridoxal phosphate-dependent enzyme. The pyridoxal serves as the —NH, acceptor from glntamate to form pyridoxamine. Pyridoxamine is then the amino donor to oxaloacetate to form asparate and regenerate the pyridoxal coenzyme form. (The pyridoxamine enzyme is the E form.)... 

This enzyme [EC 2.6.1.21], also known as D-aspartate aminotransferase, D-amino acid aminotransferase, and D-amino acid transaminase, catalyzes the reversible pyridoxal-phosphate-dependent reaction of D-alanine with a-ketoglutarate to yield pyruvate and D-glutamate. The enzyme will also utilize as substrates the D-stereoisomers of leucine, aspartate, glutamate, aminobutyrate, norva-hne, and asparagine. See o-Amino Acid Aminotransferase... 

This pyridoxal-phosphate-dependent enzyme [EC 2.6.1.35] catalyzes the reaction of glycine with oxaloace-tate to produce glyoxylate and L-aspartate. See also Glycine Aminotransferase Glyoxylate Aminotransferase... 

Cyclic interconversion of pyridoxal phosphate and pyridoxamine phosphate during the aspartate aminotransferase reaction. 

Amino groups are tunneled to glutamate from all amino acids except lysine and threonine. The enzymes are aminotransferases, and they are reversible. The two most important of these enzymes are alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST). Aminotransferases require pyridoxal phosphate as a coenzyme. The presence of elevated levels of aminotransferases in the plasma can be used to diagnose liver disease. 

Figure 3-23 (A) Stereoscopic a-carbon plot of the cystolic aspartate aminotransferase dimer viewed down its dyad symmetry axis. Bold lines are used for one subunit (subunit 1) and dashed lines for subunit 2. The coenzyme pyridoxal 5 -phosphate (Fig. 3-24) is seen most clearly in subunit 2 (center left). (B) Thirteen sections, spaced 0.1 nm apart, of the 2-methylaspartate difference electron density map superimposed on the a-carbon plot shown in (A). The map is contoured in increments of 2a (the zero level omitted), where a = root mean square density of the entire difference map. Positive difference density is shown as solid contours and negative difference density as dashed contours. The alternating series of negative and positive difference density features in the small domain of subunit 1 (lower right) show that the binding of L-2-methylaspartate between the two domains of this subunit induces a right-to-left movement of the small domain. (Continues)...

Figure 3-30 Spectra of the pyridoxal phosphate (PLP), pyridoxamine phosphate (PMP) and apoenzyme forms of pig cytosolic aspartate aminotransferase at pH 8.3, 21 °C. Some excess apoenzyme is present in the sample of the PMP form. Spectra were recorded at 500 MH2. Chemical shift values are in parts per million relative to that of HzO taken as 4.80 ppm at 22°C. Peak A is from a proton on the ring nitrogen of PLP or PMP, peaks B and D are from imidazole NH groups of histidines 143 and 189 (see Fig. 14-6), and peaks C and D are from amide NH groups hydrogen bonded to carboxyl groups.

Figure 14-6 Drawing showing pyridoxal phosphate (shaded) and some surrounding protein structure in the active site of cytosolic aspartate aminotransferase. This is the low pH form of the enzyme with an N-protonated Schiff base linkage of lysine 258 to the PLP. The tryptophan 140 ring lies in front of the coenzyme. Several protons, labeled Ha, Hb, and Hd are represented in NMR spectra by distinct resonances whose chemical shifts are sensitive to changes in the active site.169...

Figure 14-9 Absorption spectra of various forms of aspartate aminotransferase compared with that of free pyridoxal phosphate. The low pH form of the enzyme observed at pH <5 is converted to the high pH form with pka 6.3. Addition of erythro-3-hydroxyaspartate produces a quinonoid form whose spectrum here is shown only 1/3 its true height. The spectrum of free PLP at pH 8.3 is also shown. The...

Enzymes containing pyridoxal phosphate are prime targets for suicide inhibition because the chemistry is so naturally suitable. As discussed in Chapter 2, section C2, the pyridoxal ring acts as an electron sink that facilitates the formation of carbanions and also forms part of an extended system of conjugated double bonds. For example, vinyl glycine, CH2=CHCH(NH3+)C02, condenses with the pyridoxal phosphate of aspartate aminotransferase to form a Schiff base, as described in Chapter 2, equation 2.42.19 The a proton may be abstracted (as in equation 2.43) so that the isomerization shown in equation 9.13 readily occurs. 

Fig. 8.10 X-ray crystal structure of an aspartate aminotransferase (AspAT) bound to its cofactor pyridoxal 5 -phosphate and aspartate. Directed evolution techniques produced changes in ligand specificity due to substitution of the disparate positions indicated. Coordinates from lART [25].

Some pyridoxal phosphate-dependent enzymes are normally fuUy saturated with cofactor and show the same activity on assay in vitro whether additional pyridoxal phosphate is present in the incubation medium or not. Examples of this class of enzymes include liver cysteine sulfinate decarboxylase (which is involved in the synthesis of taurine from cysteine Section 14.5.1) and the brain and liver glutamate and aspartate aminotransferases. 

In all cases the keto acids seem to be formed by typical a-ketogluta-rate-linked, pyridoxal phosphate-dependent transaminases (EC 2.6.1.6, etc.) (9, 154, 156, 157). There has been little study of isolated, presumably specific enzymes in connection with flavors, although the leucine and alanine aminotransferases of tomato have been precipitated with (NH4)oS04 (164, 165). Transaminase activity in Saccharomyces cere-visiae has a pH optimum of 7.2 (154), and a-ketoglutarate is the only amino group recipient (154, 166). Only aspartate and amino acids with hydrophobic side chains are acted on (154). 

Aspartate aminotransferase is the prototype of a large family of PLP-dependent enzymes. Comparisons of amino acid sequences as well as several three-dimensional structures reveal that almost all transaminases having roles in amino acid biosynthesis are related to aspartate aminotransferase by divergent evolution. An examination of the aligned amino acid sequences reveals that two residues are completely conserved. These residues are the lysine residue that forms the Schiff base with the pyridoxal phosphate cofactor (lysine 258 in aspartate aminotransferase) and an arginine residue that interacts with the a-carboxylate group of the ketoacid (see Figure 23.11). 

Figure 2.11. Pyridoxal phosphate at the active site of aspartate aminotransferase.

Figure 23.12 Aspartate aminotransferase. The active site of this prototypical PLP-dependent enzyme includes pyridoxal phosphate attached to the enzyme by a Schiff-base linkage with lysine 2S8, An arginine residue in the active site helps orient substrates by binding to their u-carboxylate groups. Only one of the enzyme s two subunits is shown,...

The first step in the catabolism of most amino acids is the transfer of the o-amino group from the amino acid to a-ketoglutarate (tx-KG). This process is catalyzed by transaminase (aminotransferase) enzymes that require pyridoxal phosphate as a cofactor. The products of this reaction are glutamate (Glu) and the a-ketoacid analog of the amino acid destined for catabolic breakdown. For example, aspartate is converted to its a-keto analog, oxalo-acetate, by the action of aspartate transaminase (AST), which also produces Glu from a-KG. The transamination process is freely reversible, and the direction in which the reaction proceeds is dependent on the concentrations of the reactants and products. These reactions do not effect a net removal of amino nitrogen the amino group is only transferred from one amino acid to another. 

The synthesis of chiral a-amino acids starting from a-keto acids by means of a transamination has been reported by NSC Technologies [26, 27]. In this process, which can be used for the preparation of l- as well as D-amino acids, an amino group is transferred from an inexpensive amino donor, e.g., L-glutamic acid, l-22, or L-aspartic acid, in the presence of a transaminase (= aminotransferase). This reaction requires a cofactor, most commonly pyridoxal phosphate, which is bound to the transaminase. The substrate specificity is broad, allowing the conversion of numerous keto acid substrates under formation of the L-amino acid products with high enantioselectivities [28]. 

For continuous production of L-p-fluorophenylalanine, a typical set of operating conditions is shown in Table 12.7-2. L-Aspartate is used at a 10 % molar excess to the starting 2-ketoacid. The cofactor pyridoxal phosphate is added to the reaction mixture to achieve a final concentration of 0.1 mM. The initial pH of the feed solution is 7.2. Mg2+ ion was used to accelerate the decarboxylation of oxaloacetate to pyruvate. The reaction was maintained with a temperature range of37-40 °C. Under these conditions using an immobilized broad-range aminotransferase, the volumetric productivity of the reactor for the production of L-phenylalanine at 85% conversion was 20 gL 1h 1. 

Nitrogen as a-amino nitrogen can be moved between carbon skeletons by a process known as transamination, requiring pyridoxal phosphate. Two important active enzymes for transamination are aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase. In most transaminations, glutamate is either the donor of the amino group or the product of the transamination. 

The (I( )-l-amino-2-propanol linker is known to be derived from threonine. In S. enterica, CobD was found to be an enzyme with L-threonine 0-3-phosphate decarboxylase activity, which generates (/f)-l-amino-2-propa-nol phosphate. The enzyme is a pyridoxal phosphate requiring enzyme and the structure of the protein has been determined by X-ray crystallography (Figure 28). The structure of CobD was found to be highly similar to the aspartate aminotransferase family of enzymes. Structures of CobD with substrate and product bound have allowed a detailed mechanism for the enzyme to be proposed, whereby the external aldimine is directed toward decarboxylation rather than aminotransfer. Threonine phosphate, itself, is synthesized from L-threonine by the action of a kinase, which is encoded by pduX The pduX is housed within the propanediol utilization operon rather than the cobalamin biosynthetic operon for reasons that are not clear. 

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