Pyruvate from cysteine

The formation of pyruvate from cysteine is mediated by a de-sulfhydrase (Kredich et al. 1973) (Figure 6.120a) and pyruvate is also formed by a similar reaction from aminoethylcysteine (Rossol and Piihler 1992). 

This compound undergoes a two-step ATP-dependent cyclization352-355 to form dethiobiotin. The final step, insertion of sulfur into dethiobiotin, is catalyzed by biotin synthase, a free-radical-dependent enzyme related to pyruvate formate lyase (Fig. 15-16). It transfers the sulfur from cysteine via an Fe-S cluster.3553 Biosynthesis of lipoic acid involves a similar insertion of two sulfur atoms into octanoic acid.356 See also p. 1410. 

It is not known to what extent taurine may be a dietary essential for human beings. There is little cysteine sulfinic acid decarboxylase activity in the human liver and, like the cat, loading doses of methionine and cysteine do not result in any significant increase in plasma taurine. This may be because cysteine sulfinic acid can also undergo transamination to /3-sulfhydryl pyruvate, which then loses sulfur dioxide nonenzymically to form pyruvate, thus regulating the amount of taurine that is formed from cysteine. There is no evidence of the development of any taurine deficiency disease under normal conditions. 

Several enzymes utilize thiyl radicals for substrate conversion. In the ribonucleotide reductase (RNR) class III, pyruvate formate lyase and benzylsuccinate synthase, cysteine thiyl radicals are generated via hydrogen transfer from cysteine to glycine radicals (Reaction (3.25)) [3, 24-27, 48-52]. 

Autotrophic organisms synthesize methionine from asparfafe as shovm in the lower right side of Fig. 24-13. This involves fransfer of a sulfur atom from cysteine info homocysteine, using the carbon skeleton of homoserine, the intermediate cystathionine, and two PLP-dependent enzymes, cystathionine y-synthase and cystathionine p-lyase. This transsulfuration sequence (Fig. 24-13, Eq. 14-33) is essentially irreversible because of the cleavage to pyruvate and NH4+ by the P-lyase. Nevertheless, this transsulfuration pathway operates in reverse in the animal body, which uses two different PLP enzymes, cystathionine P s3mthase (which also contains a bound heme) and cystathionine y-lyase (Figs. 24-13,24-16, steps h and i), in a pathway that metabolizes excess methionine. 

Cysteine and cystine are unstable towards hot base. The reaction rate and the decomposition products are very much dependent on the presence or absence of oxygen. Presumably, cysteine is more stable than cystine but as with the stability in acid this fact is of minor importance when considering the reaction of cysteine in plant extracts. The production of alanine from cysteine has been demonstrated (Wieland and Wirth, 1949), but again this formation is probably due to secondary transamination with pyruvic acid formed initially. The formation of ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and pyruvic acid from both cysteine and cystine has been demonstrated. With cysteine the decomposition probably follows a route parallel to that for serine described above ... 

Reaction 8, the direct cleavage of L-cystine to produce pyruvate and thiocysteine has been studied in much more detail. An enzyme has been found in a number of Brassica species which cattdyzes the production of pyruvate from L-cystine (Mazelis et al., 1%7). The specificity of this enzyme using six-fold purified B. napobrassica root preparations was limited to L-cystine and 5-methyl-L-cysteine sulfoxide of naturally occurring substrates. The enzyme was completely dependent on added pyridoxal 5 -phosphate. The for L-cystine was 1 vaM and 0.5 pM for pyridoxal phosphate. L-Cysteine was not a substrate but was a competitive inhibitor at low concentrations. This was due to the -SH function since glutathione had the same effect. The Aj for these compounds was 0.15 mM. 

Fig. 17.23 The production of pyruvic acid, ammonia and hydrogen sulphide from cysteine by cysteine desulphydrase.

Another route for the removal of the thiol group from cysteine is through the intermediate formation of thiol pyruvic acid, which is the a-keto acid derived from cysteine by transamination ... 

The enzyme transferring sulphwr from 3-mercapto pyruvate appears to have a similar mechanism, involving a persulphide-like enzymatic intermediate. The possible role of this enzyme in transsulphuration from cysteine has been discussed earlier. 

It also appears that thiol pyruvate can serve as sulphur donor for some biological transsulphurations. The thiol nucleotides which occur in small quantities in certain nucleic acids appear to derive their sulphur, at least in part, from thiol pyruvate rather than directly from cysteine. While these reactions have not been extensively studied as yet, ATP is required possibly to activate a group for intermediate thioether formation. Pyruvate elimination could then proceed through an enolate or an intermediate enzyme-bound Schiff base. 

The formation of furans, thiophenes, furanones, thiophenones etc. was investigated in a series of [l(or 6)- C]-glucose and [l- C]-arabinose/ cysteine and methionine model experiments. The labeled compounds were analyzed by capillary GC/MS and NMR-spectroscopy. From their structures the degradation pathways via different reactive intermediates (e.g. 3-deoxyaldoketose, 1-deoxydiketose) and fragmentations were evaluated. Besides the transformations to flavor compounds via identical labeled precursors, major differences in the flavor compounds result from specific Strecker reaction sequences. Major unlabeled compounds e.g. 3-mercaptopropionic acid from cysteine and 4-methylthiobutyric acid from methionine demonstrate transamination/reduction, and the formation of pyruvate and 2-mercaptopropionic acid from [l-i C]-glucose/cysteine indicates B-elimination. 

Cysteine Desulfhydrase. Cysteine undergoes a desulfuration that is believed to be analogous to the dehydration of serine. The enzyme cysteine desulfhydrase requires pyridoxal phosphate and forms pyruvate, H2S, and NH3. This enzyme has been found in animal liver and presumably occurs in microorganisms that release H2S from cysteine. Evidence has been obtained with H2S that indicates some reversibility of the reaction, but no thermodynamic data are available. A similar enzyme has been reported to form a-ketobutyrate, NH3, and H2S from homocysteine. ... 

Two amino acids—cysteine and tyrosine—can be synthesized in the body, but only from essential amino acid ptecutsots (cysteine from methionine and tyrosine from phenylalanine). The dietary intakes of cysteine and tytosine thus affect the requirements for methionine and phenylalanine. The remaining 11 amino acids in proteins are considered to be nonessential or dispensable, since they can be synthesized as long as there is enough total protein in the diet—ie, if one of these amino acids is omitted from the diet, nitrogen balance can stiU be maintained. Howevet, only three amino acids—alanine, aspartate, and glutamate—can be considered to be truly dispensable they ate synthesized from common metabolic intetmediates (pyruvate, ox-... 

HCN is detoxified to thiocyanate (SCN ) by the mitochondrial enzyme rhodanese rhodanese catalyzes the transfer of sulfur from thiosulfate to cyanide to yield thiocyanate, which is relatively nontoxic (Smith 1996). The rate of detoxification of HCN in humans is about 1 pg/kg/min (Schulz 1984) or 4.2 mg/h, which, the author states, is considerably slower than in small rodents. This information resulted from reports of the therapeutic use of sodium nitroprusside to control hypertension. Rhodanese is present in the liver and skeletal muscle of mammalian species as well as in the nasal epithelium. The mitochondria of the nasal and olfactory mucosa of the rat contain nearly seven times as much rhodanese as the liver (Dahl 1989). The enzyme rhodanese is present to a large excess in the human body relative to its substrates (Schulz 1984). This enzyme demonstrates zero-order kinetics, and the limiting factor in the detoxification of HCN is thiosulphate. However, other sulfur-containing substrates, such as cystine and cysteine, can also serve as sulfur donors. Other enzymes, such as 3-mercapto-pyruvate sulfur transferase, can convert... 

This enzyme [EC 4.1.99.1], also known as L-tryptophan indole-lyase, catalyzes the hydrolysis of L-tryptophan to generate indole, pyruvate, and ammonia. The reaction requires pyridoxal phosphate and potassium ions. The enzyme can also catalyze the synthesis of tryptophan from indole and serine as well as catalyze 2,3-elimination and j8-replacement reactions of some indole-substituted tryptophan analogs of L-cysteine, L-serine, and other 3-substituted amino acids. 

The actual formation of pyruvic acid from various mercapturic acids upon which these formulae for cysteine and cystine were founded, was only shown later by Baumann s pupils, Konigs, Brenzinger and Schmitz, and in conjunction with Suter s observation that a-thiolactic acid was formed by the hydrolysis of horn, this formula for cystine was accepted. The results obtained, however, scarcely justified this formula as pointed out by Friedmann in 1902, who showed conclusively that the cystine, obtained from proteins, had not this constitution. 

Affinity Labeling of Catalytic ATP Sites. Residues involved in ATP binding are potentially revealed by the use of affinity labels that are based on ATP s structure. Perhaps the most systematically studied of these compounds is 5 -fluorosulfonylbenzoyladenosine (5 -FSBA) (Figure 3a), which has been reported to label at least six kinases (32-A1). In the case of rabbit muscle pyruvate kinase such work has Indicated the presence of a tyrosine residue within the metal nucleotide binding site and an essential cysteine residue located at or near the free metal binding site (32). A similar reagent, 5 -FSBGuanosine, revealed the presence of two cysteine residues at the catalytic site of this same enzyme, both distinct residues from those modified by 5 -FSBA (33,34). With yeast pyruvate kinase both tyrosine and cysteine residues were modified by 5 -FSBA at the catalytic site ( ), and with porcine cAMP-dependent protein kinase a lysine residue was labeled at the active site (36). 

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