Deoxyguanosine monophosphate kinase

An enzyme partially purified from yeast acts upon the nucleotides of adenine, guanine, and uridine to carry out transphosphorylation (Eqs. 33) to 36)] 112-116). Nucleoside monophosphate kinases have been partially purified from E. coli, which catalyzes the formation of triphosphates of deoxyadenine, deoxyguanosine, thymidine, and deoxycytidine from their corresponding 5 -monophosphates, in the presence of ATP 116, 117). 

While mammahan cells reutilize few free pyrimidines, salvage reactions convert the ribonucleosides uridine and cytidine and the deoxyribonucleosides thymidine and deoxycytidine to their respective nucleotides. ATP-dependent phosphoryltransferases (kinases) catalyze the phosphorylation of the nucleoside diphosphates 2 "-de-oxycytidine, 2 -deoxyguanosine, and 2 -deoxyadenosine to their corresponding nucleoside triphosphates. In addition, orotate phosphoribosyltransferase (reaction 5, Figure 34-7), an enzyme of pyrimidine nucleotide synthesis, salvages orotic acid by converting it to orotidine monophosphate (OMP). 

Aciclovir is a member of a group of nucleoside derivatives termed acyclonucleosides, in that there is an incomplete sugar ring. The structural relationship to 2 -deoxyguanosine should be very clear. Aciclovir is converted into its monophosphate by the viral enzyme thymidine kinase - some viruses also possess enzymes that facilitate their replication in the host cell. The viral enzyme turns out to be much more effective than that of the host cell, and conversion is, therefore, mainly in infected cells. The monophosphate is subsequently converted into the triphosphate hy the host cell enzymes. Aciclovir triphosphate inhibits viral DNA polymerase, much more so than it does the host enzyme, and so terminates DNA replication. 

Nucleoside kinases are a class of enzymes that catalyze the phosphorylation of nucleosides to make nucleoside monophosphates (Figure 22.2) as part of nucleotide biosynthetic salvage pathways. ATP provides the energy and phosphate for the reaction. Example enzymes include thymidine kinase, deoxycytidine kinase, and deoxyguanosine kinase. 

The kinase which converts deoxycytidine to its 5 -monophosphate has been studied most extensively in preparations from calf thymus 35, 36). The preferred substrate is deoxycytidine, for which the Michaelis constant (5 X 10 M) is much lower than that of two other substrates, deoxyadenosine and deoxyguanosine. Cytidine, uridine, and thymidine are not phosphorylated by this enzyme. Deoxycytidine kinase is subject to a complex pattern of allosteric regulation by nucleotides. The end product of deoxycytidine phosphorylation, dCTP, is a potent inhibitor this inhibition is reversed by dTTP. The enzyme has a rather broad specificity for the phosphate donor, with the triphosphates of the natural ribo- and deoxyribonucleosides being substrates the inactivity of dCTP is a notable exception. 

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