Aspartokinase lysine sensitive

Dawson Funkhouser, J. Abraham, A. Smith, V.A. Smith W.G. Kinetic and molecular properties of lysine-sensitive aspartokinase. Factors influencing the lysine-mediated association reaction and their relationship to the cooperativity of lysine inhibition. J. Biol. Chem., 249, 5478-5484 (1974)... 

LT-aspartokinase <10> (<10> lysine-threonine-sensitive isoenzyme [3]) [3] aspartate kinase (phosphorylating) aspartate kinase III <11> [33] aspartic kinase... 

The pathway of biosynthesis of L-lysine and L-threonine in Corynebacterium glutamicum is shown in Fig. 1. The first step, the formation of phosphoaspartate from aspartate, is catalyzed by aspertokinase and this enzyme is susceptible to the concerted feedback inhibition by L-lysine and L-threonine. The auxotrophic mutant of homoserine (or threonine plus methionine), lacking homoserine dehydrogenase, was constructed and found to produce L-lysine in the culture medium. Second, the mutants which show the threonine or methionine sensitive phenotype caused by the mutation on homoserine dehydrogenase (low activity) was also found to produce appreciable amounts of L-lysine in the culture medium. Furthermore, a lysine analogue (S-aminoethylcysteine) resistant mutant was obtained as an L-lysine producer and in this strain aspartokinase was insensitive to the feedback inhibition. 

Isoenzymes of enzymes involved in the first step of a branched biosynthetic pathway may differ in their sensitivity to inhibitors. Thus the enzyme aspartate kinase catalyses in Escherichia coli the first step in the synthesis of lysine, methionine and threonine. Three isoenzymes occur, the synthesis and activity of one is suppressed by L-lysine, the activity of the second is depressed by L-threonine and the activity of the third by homoserine (an intermediate in methionine biosynthesis). Thus accumulation of L-lysine or L-threonine suppresses their own further S3mthesis but does not prevent the activity of the aspartokinase isoenzyme involved in methionine synthesis. Again peroxidase isoenzymes differ in their activity in destroying indol-3yl-acetic acid (lAA) and the pattern of peroxidase isoenzymes can be altered by feeding lAA or gibberellic acid (GA) to plant tissues. 

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