Transhydrogenase, mechanism

Mitochondria from adult H. diminuta exhibit an NADH-coupled fumarate reductase (Table 5.11). This presents a potential dilemma with respect to the utilisation of intramitochondrial reducing equivalents by this worm. As reducing equivalents are generated by the malic enzyme in the form of NADP, a mechanism for the transfer of hydride ions from NADPH to NAD to produce NADH is required so that electron-transport-associated activities can proceed and terminate with the reduction of fumarate to succinate. Such a mechanism does exist in H. diminuta as there is a non-energy-linked, membrane-associated transhydrogenase (214, 217, 221, 476). This transhydrogenase, which also occurs in H. microstoma (216) and Spirometra mansonoides (220) catalyses the reaction ... 

Glutaredoxin is another small ubiquitous protein with a different dithiol-active center which catalyzes GSH-disulfide transhydrogenase reactions. It is GSH-specific and cannot be reduced by thioredoxin reductase. It uses GSH and an NADPH-coupled glutaredoxin reductase to catalyze the reduction of a variety of disulfide substrates, including 2-hydroxyethyl-disulfide and ribonucleotide reductase [281]. Since GSSG inhibits the latter reaction, a high ratio of GSH to GSSG will promote the synthesis of deoxyribonucleotides, which is a likely control mechanism of DNA synthesis. 

The reaction mechanism of the Pseudomonas and Azotobacter transhydrogenases has been extensively investigated. Studies of the steady-state kinetics of Pseudomonas transhydrogenase by Cohen 27) and by Cohen... 

Cleland (160), steady-state kinetics of a Theorell-Chance mechanism can generally apply also to a rapid-equilibrium random mechanism with two dead-end complexes. However, in view of the data obtained with site-specific inhibitors this latter mechanism is unlikely in the case of the transhydrogenase (70, 71). The proposed mechanism is also consistent with the observation of Fisher and Kaplan (118) that the breakage of the C-H bonds of the reduced nicotinamide nucleotides is not a rate-limiting step in the mitochondrial transhydrogenase reaction. 

The majority of synthetic reactions in mammalian cells takes place in the cytosol. The intramitochondrial localization of transhydrogenase excludes a direct participation in these anabolic processes. Substrate shuttle mechanisms (176, 177) are required to allow for the interaction between intra- and extramitochondrial nicotinamide nucleotide-dependent reactions. In the first instance transhydrogenase can be regarded to be functionally related to intramitochondrial NADP-linked reactions. A number of studies on isolated mitochondria have elaborated these relationships in some detail, in particular with regard to mitochondrial monooxygenation reactions and to the metabolism of glutamate and isocitrate. 

Early proposals concerning the mechanism of the energy-linked transhydrogenase reaction were based on the chemical hypothesis of oxidative phosphorylation [82] and visualized the involvement of high-energy intermediates of the type 1 X, NADH I, NADP I, etc. [29,46]. These proposals, however, just as the chemical hypothesis as a whole, had to be abandoned because of lack of experimental evidence. 

As pointed out previously in this review the steady-state kinetics of mitochondrial transhydrogenase, earlier interpreted to indicate a ternary Theorell-Chance mechanism on the basis of competitive relationships between NAD and NADH and between NADP and NADPH, and noncompetitive relationships between NAD" and NADP" and between NADH and NADPH, has been reinterpreted in the light of more recent developments in the interpretation of steady-state kinetic data. Thus, although the product inhibition patterns obtained in the earlier reports [75-77] using submitochondrial particles were close to identical to those obtained in a more recent report [90] using purified and reconstituted transhydrogenase, the reinterpretation favors a random mechanism with the two dead-end complexes NAD E NADP and NADH E NADPH. A random mechanism is also supported by the observation that the transhydrogenase binds to immobilized NAD as well as NADP [105] in the absence of the second substrate. 

Fig. 2. Reaction mechanism of mitochondrial transhydrogenase. Rate constants within brackets refer to the energy-linked hydrogenase ki, fcj, fe, and k, are expressed as /iM" min" , where fe and fej are expressed as min" . Fast reactions are indicated by dashed lines. From Rydstrom et al. (69).

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