Citrate cleaving enzymes

Malate is not the only form in which C4 compounds are exported from mitochondria. Much oxaloacetate is combined with acetyl-CoA to form citrate the latter leaves the mitochondria and is cleaved by the ATP-dependent citrate-cleaving enzymes (Eq. 13-39). This, in effect, exports both acetyl-CoA (needed for lipid synthesis) and oxaloacetate which is reduced to malate within the cytoplasm. Alternatively, oxaloacetate may be transaminated to aspartate. The aspartate, after leaving the mitochondria, may be converted in another transamination reaction back to oxaloacetate. All of these are part of the nonequilibrium process by which C4 compounds diffuse out of the mitochondria before completing the reaction sequence of Eq. 17-46 and entering into other metabolic processes. Note that the reaction of Eq. 17-46 leads to the export of reducing equivalents from mitochondria, the opposite of the process catalyzed by the malate-aspartate shuttle which is discussed in Chapter 18 (Fig. 18-18). The two processes are presumably active under different conditions. 

Carbon for FAS could also be produced via ATP-citrate lyase. This activity, which will convert citrate to oxaloacetate plus acetyl-CoA, has been demonstrated in soybean extracts. But there is no current evidence for citrate transport into the plastid nor of localisation of this activity in the plctstid to support citrate cleaving enzyme as a source of carbon for FAS, at least for avocado mesoccirp plastids. Extracts of developing soybean also contain a NADP+-dependent medic enzyme.20 NAD+-dependent malic enzyme, which produces pyruvate ind Cctrbon dioxide from malate, is an enzyme specific to the mitochondrial matrix in higher pleints.21 The localisation of NADP+-malic enzyme in immature soybeans, eind the possibility of pyruvate production other than by pyruvate kinase, and the utilisation of this pyruvate in FAS, remain to be determined. 

Pymvate dehydrogenase is a mitochondrial enzyme, and fatty acid synthesis is a cytosohc pathway, but the mitochondrial membrane is impermeable to acetyl-CoA. Acetyl-CoA is made available in the cytosol from citrate synthesized in the mitochondrion, transported into the cytosol and cleaved in a reaction catalyzed by ATP-citrate lyase. 

A carrier molecule containing four carbon atoms (the C4 unit) takes up a C2 unit (the activated acetic acid ), which is introduced into the cycle. The product is a six-carbon molecule (the C6 unit), citric acid, or its salt, citrate. CO2 is cleaved off in a cyclic process, so that a C5 unit is left this loses a further molecule of CO2 to give the C4 unit, oxalacetate. In the living cell, this process involves ten steps, which are catalysed by eight enzymes. However, the purpose of the TCA cycle is not the elimination of CO2, but the provision of reduction equivalents, i.e., of electrons, and... 

The tricarboxylic acid cycle not only takes up acetyl CoA from fatty acid degradation, but also supplies the material for the biosynthesis of fatty acids and isoprenoids. Acetyl CoA, which is formed in the matrix space of mitochondria by pyruvate dehydrogenase (see p. 134), is not capable of passing through the inner mitochondrial membrane. The acetyl residue is therefore condensed with oxaloacetate by mitochondrial citrate synthase to form citrate. This then leaves the mitochondria by antiport with malate (right see p. 212). In the cytoplasm, it is cleaved again by ATP-dependent citrate lyase [4] into acetyl-CoA and oxaloacetate. The oxaloacetate formed is reduced by a cytoplasmic malate dehydrogenase to malate [2], which then returns to the mitochondrion via the antiport already mentioned. Alternatively, the malate can be oxidized by malic enzyme" [5], with decarboxylation, to pyruvate. The NADPH+H formed in this process is also used for fatty acid biosynthesis. 

With the stereochemistry of the citrate lyase reaction determined, that of the Si citrate synthetase (the common enzyme) was established as shown in Fig. 70. Condensation of (J )-acetic-d, t acid (configuration known by synthesis) with oxalo-acetate gives what turns out to be mainly (2S,3/ )-citric-2-d,2-/ acid (112).41 When this acid is then cleaved with citrate lyase, the major product is (/ )-acetic-d, t acid, as established by the malate synthetase/fumarase diagnosis. It follows that both the Si-citrate synthetase and citrate lyase reactions must involve the same stereochemical course. Since that of the lyase reaction is inversion (vide supra), that of the Si synthetase reaction must be inversion also. And since the overall stereochemical result shown in Fig. 70 is not dependent on the magnitude of the... 

Fatty acid synthesis and degradation. Fatty acids are synthesized in the cytosol by the addition of two-carbon units to a growing chain on an acyl carrier protein. Malonyl CoA, the activated intermediate, is formed by the carboxylation of acetyl CoA. Acetyl groups are carried from mitochondria to the cytosol as citrate by the citrate-malate shuttle. In the cytosol, citrate is cleaved to yield acetyl CoA. In addition to transporting acetyl CoA, citrate in the cytosol stimulates acetyl CoA carboxylase, the enzyme catalyzing the committed step. When ATP and acetyl CoA are abundant, the level of citrate increases, which accelerates the rate of fatty acid synthesis (Figure 30.8). 

In the cytosol, citrate is cleaved to oxaloacetate and acetyl CoA by citrate lyase, an enzyme that requires ATP and is induced by insulin. 

C. Fatty acid synthesis is maximal in the fed state when insulin is elevated. Glucose is converted to citrate, which is cleaved to oxaloacetate and acetyl CoA. The regulatory enzyme... 

When citrate, a citric acid cycle intermediate, moves from the mitochondrial matrix into the cytoplasm, it is cleaved to form acetyl-CoA and oxaloacetate by citrate lyase. The citrate lyase reaction is driven by ATP hydrolysis. Most of the oxaloacetate is reduced to malate by malate dehydrogenase. Malate may then be oxidized to pyruvate and CO, by malic enzyme. The NADPH produced in this reaction is used in cytoplasmic biosynthetic processes, such as fatty acid synthesis. Pyruvate enters the mitochondria, where it may be converted to oxaloacetate or acetyl-CoA. Malate may also reenter the mitochondria, where it is reoxidized to form oxaloacetate. 

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