Enzymes allosteric activation

Allosteric enzymes Allosteric activators or inhibitors are compounds that bind at sites other than the active catalytic site and regulate the enzyme through conformational changes affecting the catalytic site. 

The working hypothesis is that, by some means, interaction of an allosteric enzyme with effectors alters the distribution of conformational possibilities or subunit interactions available to the enzyme. That is, the regulatory effects exerted on the enzyme s activity are achieved by conformational changes occurring in the protein when effector metabolites bind. 

First draw both Lineweaver-Burk plots and Hanes-Woolf plots for the following a Monod-Wyman-Changeux allosteric K enzyme system, showing separate curves for the kinetic response in (1) the absence of any effectors (2) the presence of allosteric activator A and (3) the presence of allosteric inhibitor I. Then draw a similar set of curves for a Monod-Wyman-Changeux allosteric Uenzyme system. 

Pyruvate carboxylase is the most important of the anaplerotie reactions. It exists in the mitochondria of animal cells but not in plants, and it provides a direct link between glycolysis and the TCA cycle. The enzyme is tetrameric and contains covalently bound biotin and an Mg site on each subunit. (It is examined in greater detail in our discussion of gluconeogenesis in Chapter 23.) Pyruvate carboxylase has an absolute allosteric requirement for acetyl-CoA. Thus, when acetyl-CoA levels exceed the oxaloacetate supply, allosteric activation of pyruvate carboxylase by acetyl-CoA raises oxaloacetate levels, so that the excess acetyl-CoA can enter the TCA cycle. 

Two particularly interesting aspects of the pyruvate carboxylase reaction are (a) allosteric activation of the enzyme by acyl-coenzyme A derivatives and (b) compartmentation of the reaction in the mitochondrial matrix. The carboxy-lation of biotin requires the presence (at an allosteric site) of acetyl-coenzyme A or other acylated coenzyme A derivatives. The second half of the carboxylase reaction—the attack by pyruvate to form oxaloacetate—is not affected by CoA derivatives. 

Because this enzyme catalyzes the committed step in fatty acid biosynthesis, it is carefully regulated. Palmitoyl-CoA, the final product of fatty acid biosynthesis, shifts the equilibrium toward the inactive protomers, whereas citrate, an important allosteric activator of this enzyme, shifts the equilibrium toward the active polymeric form of the enzyme. Acetyl-CoA carboxylase shows the kinetic behavior of a Monod-Wyman-Changeux V-system allosteric enzyme (Chapter 15). 

The metabolic control is exercised on certain key regulatory enzymes of a pathway called allosteric enzymes. These are enzymes whose catalytic activity is modulated through non-covalent binding of a specific metabolite at a site on the protein other than the catalytic site. Such enzymes may be allosterically inhibited by ATP or allosterically activated by ATP (some by ADP and/or AMP). 

In die metabolic pathway to an amino add several steps are involved. Each step is die result of an enzymatic activity. The key enzymatic activity (usually die first enzyme in the synthesis) is regulated by one of its products (usually die end product, eg die amino add). If die concentration of die amino add is too high die enzymatic activity is decreased by interaction of die inhibitor with the regulatory site of die enzyme (allosteric enzyme). This phenomenon is called feedback inhibition. 

Substances that do not target the active site but display inhibition by allosteric mechanisms are associated with a lower risk of unwanted interference with related cellular enzymes. Allosteric inhibition of the viral polymerase is employed in the case of HIV-1 nonnucleosidic RT inhibitors (NNRTl, see chapter by Zimmermann et al., this volume) bind outside the RT active site and act by blocking a conformational change of the enzyme essential for catalysis. A potential disadvantage of targeting regions distant from the active site is that these may be subject to a lower selective pressure for sequence conservation than the active site itself, which can lower the threshold for escape of the virus by mutation. 

The lack of structural similarity between a feedback inhibitor and the substrate for the enzyme whose activity it regulates suggests that these effectors are not isosteric with a substrate but allosteric ( occupy another space ). Jacques Monod therefore proposed the existence of allosteric sites that are physically distinct from the catalytic site. Allosteric enzymes thus are those whose activity at the active site may be modulated by the presence of effectors at an allosteric site. This hypothesis has been confirmed by many lines of evidence, including x-ray crystallography and site-directed mutagenesis, demonstrating the existence of spatially distinct active and allosteric sites on a variety of enzymes. 

Condensation of CO2, ammonia, and ATP to form carbamoyl phosphate is catalyzed by mitochondrial carbamoyl phosphate synthase I (reaction 1, Figure 29-9). A cytosolic form of this enzyme, carbamoyl phosphate synthase II, uses glutamine rather than ammonia as the nitrogen donor and functions in pyrimidine biosynthesis (see Chapter 34). Carbamoyl phosphate synthase I, the rate-hmiting enzyme of the urea cycle, is active only in the presence of its allosteric activator JV-acetylglutamate, which enhances the affinity of the synthase for ATP. Formation of carbamoyl phosphate requires 2 mol of ATP, one of which serves as a phosphate donor. Conversion of the second ATP to AMP and pyrophosphate, coupled to the hydrolysis of pyrophosphate to orthophosphate, provides the driving... 

The diagnosis of PK deficiency depends on the determination of quantitative enzyme activity or qualitative abnormalities of the enzyme. In 1979, the International Committee for Standardization in Haematology (ICSH) established methods for the biochemical characterization of red blood cell PK variants (M22). Since the establishment of these methods, many PK-deficient cases have been characterized, including 13 cases of homozygous PK deficiency. Residual red blood cell PK activity is not usually associated with phenotypic severity,whereas enzymatic characteristics such as decreased substrate affinity, thermal instability, or impaired response to the allosteric activator fructose-1,6-diphosphate (F-1,6-DP) correspond to a more severe phenotype. 

Allosteric activators bind specifically to the R state and pull more of the enzyme into the more active R state. 

Triglyceride and fatty acid synthesis are promoted by insulin stimulation of liver and adipose tissues by causing the phosphorylation of the first and controlling enzyme in the pathway acetyl-CoA carboxylase (see Section 6.3.2). This enzyme catalyses the formation of malonyl-CoA and requires both allosteric activation by citrate and covalent modification for full activity. 

Enzyme Activity when phosphorylated Activity when dephosphorylated Allosteric activators Allosteric inhibitors... 

It is perfectly possible for some substrate-modulator combinations to result in an increase in substrate affinity, an increase in the rate of product formation, or both. The same analytical approaches may be used to study such compounds as have been described earlier to assess inhibitory mechanisms and potencies. However, with an allosteric activator, the dissociation constant might better be termed and values for a and p are more likely to be less than one, and greater than one, respectively. As is the case for inhibition, allosteric enzyme activation would be expected to exhibit substrate dependence (Holt et al., 2004). 

The key enzyme in fatty acid synthesis is acetyl CoA carboxylase (see p. 162), which precedes the synthase and supplies the malonyl-CoA required for elongation. Like all carboxylases, the enzyme contains covalently bound biotin as a prosthetic group and is hormone-dependently inactivated by phosphorylation or activated by dephosphorylation (see p. 120). The precursor citrate (see p. 138) is an allosteric activator, while palmitoyl-CoA inhibits the end product of the synthesis pathway. 

For example, Bachelard used [Mgtotai]/[ATPtotai ] = 1 in his rate studies, and he obtained a slightly sigmoidal plot of initial velocity versus substrate ATP concentration. This culminated in the erroneous proposal that brain hexokinase was allosterically activated by magnesium ions and by magnesium ion-adenosine triphosphate complex. Purich and Fromm demonstrated that failure to achieve adequate experimental control over the free magnesium ion concentration can wreak havoc on the examination of enzyme kinetic behavior. Indeed, these investigators were able to account fully for the effects obtained in the previous hexokinase study. ... 

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