Pyruvate carrier

The formation of acetyl CoA from carbohydrates is less direct than from fat. Recall that carbohydrates, most notably glucose, are processed by glycolysis into pyruvate (Chapter 16). Under anaerobic conditions, the pyruvate is converted into lactic acid or ethanol, depending on the organism. Under aerobic conditions, the pyruvate is transported into mitochondria in exchange for OH by the pyruvate carrier, an antiporter (Section 13.4). In the mitochondrial matrix, pyruvate is oxidatively decarboxylated by the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex to form acetyl CoA. 

Other homologous carriers also are present in the inner mitochondrial membrane. The dicarboxylate carrier enables malate, succinate, and fu-marate to be exported from the mitochondrial matrix in exchange for Pj. The tricarboxylate carrier exchanges citrate and for malate. Pyruvate in the cytoplasm enters the mitochondrial membrane in exchange for OH by means of the pyruvate carrier. In all, more than 40 such carriers are encoded in the human genome. 

Lipoic acid is an acyl group carrier. It is found in pyruvate dehydrogenase zard a-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase, two multienzyme complexes involved in carbohydrate metabolism (Figure 18.34). Lipoie acid functions to couple acyl-group transfer and electron transfer during oxidation and decarboxylation of a-keto adds. 

Step 1 of Figure 29.13 Carboxylation Gluconeogenesis begins with the carboxyl-afion of pyruvate to yield oxaloacetate. The reaction is catalyzed by pyruvate carboxylase and requires ATP, bicarbonate ion, and the coenzyme biotin, which acts as a carrier to transport CO2 to the enzyme active site. The mechanism is analogous to that of step 3 in fatty-acid biosynthesis (Figure 29.6), in which acetyl CoA is carboxylated to yield malonyl CoA. 

Reactions involve several enzymes, which have to follow in sequence for lactic acid and alcohol fermentation. This is known as the glucose catabolism pathway, with emphasis on energetic and energy carrier molecules such as ATP, ADP, NAD+ and NADH. In this pathway the six-carbon substrate yields two three-carbon intermediates, each of which passes through a sequence of reactions to the stable end product of pyruvic acid. 

Methylene blue and other reducible dyes were shown to enhance the activity of NADPHa-linked MHbR (K8, K9). This is confirmed by the finding that intravenous injections of methylene blue in methemo-globinemic patients result in a striking decrease of MHb levels (e.g., B14, K9, K10). This seems to be paradoxical, since methylene blue is capable of reacting with Hb with formation of MHb, but the dye reacts much more effectively as an artificial electron carrier in the NADPH2-MHbR Systran (B14). It has been stated (K10) that methemoglobin reduction is associated with the formation of pyruvate in equivalent amounts, but that in reactions accelerated by reducible dyes no correlation between pyruvate formation and MHb reduction could be found. 

Facilitated diffusion within organisms takes place when carriers or proteins residing within membranes—ion channels, for instance—organize the movement of ions from one location to another. This diffusion type is a kinetic, not thermodynamic, effect in which a for the transfer is lowered and the rate of diffusion is accelerated. Facilitated diffusion channels organize ion movements in both directions, and the process can be inhibited both competitively and noncompetitively. It is known that most cells maintain open channels for K+ most of the time and closed channels for other ions. Potassium-ion-dependent enzymes include NaVK+ ATPases (to be discussed in Section 5.4.1), pyruvate kinases, and dioldehydratases (not to be discussed further). 

Figure 3.4 Structure of two prosthetic groups (a) biotin (b) lipoate. Biotin functions as a carboxyl group carrier, e.g. in acetyl-CoA carboxylase. Lipoate is presented in its oxidised form (-S-S-). It is a cofactor for pyruvate dehydrogenase and oxoglu-tarate dehydrogenase.

The transport of amino acids at the BBB differs depending on their chemical class and the dual function of some amino acids as nutrients and neurotransmitters. Essential large neutral amino acids are shuttled into the brain by facilitated transport via the large neutral amino acid transporter (LAT) system [29] and display rapid equilibration between plasma and brain concentrations on a minute time scale. The LAT-system at the BBB shows a much lower Km for its substrates compared to the analogous L-system of peripheral tissues and its mRNA is highly expressed in brain endothelial cells (100-fold abundance compared to other tissues). Cationic amino acids are taken up into the brain by a different facilitative transporter, designated as the y system, which is present on the luminal and abluminal endothelial membrane. In contrast, active Na -dependent transporters for small neutral amino acids (A-system ASC-system) and cationic amino acids (B° system), appear to be confined to the abluminal surface and may be involved in removal of amino acids from brain extracellular fluid [30]. Carrier-mediated BBB transport includes monocarboxylic acids (pyruvate), amines (choline), nucleosides (adenosine), purine bases (adenine), panthotenate, thiamine, and thyroid hormones (T3), with a representative substrate given in parentheses [31]. 

The whole process is multi-step, and catalysed by the pyruvate dehydrogenase enzyme complex, which has three separate enzyme activities. Dnring the transformation, an acetyl group is effectively removed from pyruvate, and passed via carriers thiamine... 

The requirement for NAD+ is to reoxidize the lipoic acid carrier. It is worth mentioning that the pyruvate acetaldehyde conversion we considered at the end of the glycolytic pathway involves the same initial sequence, and pyruvate decarboxylase is another thiamine diphosphate-dependent enzyme. 

This enzyme [EC 4.1.3.25] catalyzes the conversion of (35)-citramalyl-CoA to acetyl-CoA and pyruvate. The (35)-citramalyl thioacyl-carrier protein can also be utilized as a substrate. This enzyme has been reported to be a component of citramalate lyase [EC 4.1.3.22]. 

Fig. 4 Speculative metabolic schemes of the main pathways in carbohydrate metabolism in Dasytricha sp. (after Ellis et al. 1991) Abbreviations AcCoA, acetyl-CoA, Hyd, hydro-genase, PEP, phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase, PFO, pyruvate ferredoxin oxidoreduc-tase, PYR, pyruvate, X0Xj re(j, unknown electron carrier...

The reaction involves biotin as a carrier of activated HCO3 (Fig. 14-18). The reaction mechanism is shown in Figure 16-16. Pyruvate carboxylase is the first regulatory enzyme in the gluconeogenic pathway, requiring acetyl-CoA as a positive effector. (Acetyl-CoA is produced by fatty acid oxidation (Chapter 17), and its accumulation signals the availability of fatty acids as fuel.) As we shall see in Chapter 16 (see Fig. 16-15), the pyruvate carboxylase reaction can replenish intermediates in another central metabolic pathway, the citric acid cycle. 

The combined dehydrogenation and decarboxylation of pyruvate to the acetyl group of acetyl-CoA (Fig. 16-2) requires the sequential action of three different enzymes and five different coenzymes or prosthetic groups—thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP), flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD), coenzyme A (CoA, sometimes denoted CoA-SH, to emphasize the role of the —SH group), nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), and lipoate. Four different vitamins required in human nutrition are vital components of this system thiamine (in TPP), riboflavin (in FAD), niacin (in NAD), and pantothenate (in CoA). We have already described the roles of FAD and NAD as electron carriers (Chapter 13), and we have encountered TPP as the coenzyme of pyruvate decarboxylase (see Fig. 14-13). 

The pyruvate carboxylase reaction requires the vitamin biotin (Fig. 16-16), which is the prosthetic group of the enzyme. Biotin plays a key role in many carboxyla-tion reactions. It is a specialized carrier of one-carbon groups in their most oxidized form C02. (The transfer of one-carbon groups in more reduced forms is mediated by other cofactors, notably tetrahydrofolate and 5-adenosylmethionine, as described in Chapter 18.)... 

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