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M D Toney

Publications and source records attributed to M D Toney.

26 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1991

Tyrosine 70 fine-tunes the catalytic efficiency of aspartate aminotransferase.

The aspartate aminotransferase mutant Y70F exhibits kcat = 8% and kcat/KM = 2% of the wild type values for the transamination of aspartate and alpha-ketoglutarate. The affinity of the enzyme for the noncovalently bound inhibitor maleate is reduced 17-fold by the mutation, while only a 2.5-fold reduction is observed for alpha-methylaspartate, which forms a stable, covalent external aldimine. The high population of the quinonoid intermediate formed in the reaction of the wild type with beta-hydroxyaspartate is more than 75% diminished by the mutation. The values of the Y70F C alpha-H kinetic isotope effects for the aspartate reaction are larger than those of wild type (DV = 2.4 vs 1.52; D(V/K) = 2.5 vs 1.7). Conversely, the Y70F value of D(V/K) for the glutamate reaction is decreased compared to wild type (1.75 vs 2.5). These results, combined with previous studies of Lys258 mutants, eliminate Tyr70 as an essential component of the catalytic apparatus, with the caveat that the functionally of the deleted hydroxyl group is possibly replaced by a water molecule.

Aspartate Aminotransferases↗
PubMed1991

Kinetics and equilibria for the reactions of coenzymes with wild type and the Y70F mutant of Escherichia coli aspartate aminotransferase.

The Y70F mutant of aspartate aminotransferase has reduced affinity for coenzymes compared to the wild type. The equilibrium dissociation constants for pyridoxamine phosphate (PMP) holoenzymes, KPMPdiss, were determined from the association and dissociation rate constants to be 1.3 nM and 30 nM for the wild type and mutant, respectively. This increase in KPMPdiss for Y70F is due to a 27-fold increase in the dissociation rate constant. Pyridoxal phosphate (PLP) association kinetics are complex, with three kinetic processes detectable for wild type and two for Y70F. A directly determined, accurate value of KPLPdiss for wild type enzyme has been difficult to obtain because of the low value of this constant. The values of KPLPdiss for the holoenzymes were determined indirectly through the measured values for KPMPdiss, glutamate-alpha-ketoglutarate half-reaction equilibrium constants, and the equilibrium constant for the transamination of PLP by glutamate catalyzed by Y70F. The values of KPLPdiss obtained by this procedure are 0.4 pM for wild type and 40 pM for Y70F. The increases in KPMPdiss and KPLPdiss for Y70F correspond to delta delta G values of 1.9 and 2.7 kcal/mol, respectively, and are directly attributed to the loss of the hydrogen bond from the phenolic hydroxyl group of Tyr70 to the coenzyme phosphate. The delta G for association of PLP with wild type enzyme is 4.7 kcal/mol more favorable than that for PMP.

Apoenzymes↗
PubMed1989

2.8-A-resolution crystal structure of an active-site mutant of aspartate aminotransferase from Escherichia coli.

The three-dimensional structure of a mutant of the aspartate aminotransferase from Escherichia coli, in which the active-site lysine has been substituted by alanine (K258A), has been determined at 2.8-A resolution by X-ray diffraction. The mutant enzyme contains pyridoxamine phosphate as cofactor. The structure is compared to that of the mitochondrial aspartate aminotransferase. The most striking differences, aside from the absence of the lysine side chain, occur in the positions of the pyridoxamine group and of tryptophan 140.

Aspartate Aminotransferases↗
PubMed1989

A simple method for site-directed mutagenesis using the polymerase chain reaction.

We have developed a general and simple method for directing specific sequence changes in a plasmid using primed amplification by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The method is based on the amplification of the entire plasmid using primers that include the desired changes. The method is rapid, simple in its execution, and requires only minute amounts of plasmid template DNA. It is significant that there are no special requirements for appropriately placed restriction sites in the sequence to be manipulated. In our system the yield of transformants was high and the fraction of them harboring plasmids with only the desired change was consistently about 80%. The generality of the method should make it useful for the direct alteration of most cloned genes. The only limitation may be the total length of the plasmid to be manipulated. During the study we found that the Taq DNA polymerase used for PCR adds on a single extra base (usually an A) at the end of a large fraction of the newly synthesized chains. These had to be removed by the Klenow fragment of DNA polymerase to insure restoration of the gene sequence.

Base Sequence↗
PubMed1989

Estimation of free energy barriers in the cytoplasmic and mitochondrial aspartate aminotransferase reactions probed by hydrogen-exchange kinetics of C alpha-labeled amino acids with solvent.

The existence of the postulated quinonoid intermediate in the cytoplasmic aspartate amino-transferase catalyzed transamination of aspartate to oxaloacetate was probed by determining the extent of transfer of tritium from the C alpha position of tritiated L-aspartate to pyridoxamine 5'-phosphate in single turnover experiments in which washout from the back-reaction was obviated by product trapping. The maximum amount of transferred tritium observed was 0.7%, consistent either with a mechanism in which a fraction of the net transamination reaction proceeds through a quinonoid intermediate or with a mechanism in which this intermediate is formed off the main reaction pathway. It is shown that transfer of labeled hydrogen from the amino acid to cofactor cannot be used to differentiate a stepwise from a concerted transamination mechanism. The amount of tritium transferred is a function of the rate constant for torsional equilibration about the epsilon-amino group of Lys-258, the presumptive abstractor of the C alpha proton; the relative rate constants for hydrogen exchange with solvent versus cofactor protonation; and the tritium isotope effect on this ratio. The free energy barriers facing the covalent intermediate between aldimine and keto acid product (i.e., ketimine and possibly quinonoid) were evaluated relatively by comparing the rates of C alpha-hydrogen exchange in starting amino acid with the rates of keto acid formation. The value of theta (= kexge/kprod) was found to be 2.6 for the reaction of cytoplasmic isozyme with aspartate and ca. 0.5 for that of the mitochondrial form with glutamate.

Animals↗
PubMed1989

Direct Brønsted analysis of the restoration of activity to a mutant enzyme by exogenous amines.

A true Brønsted analysis of proton transfer in an enzyme mechanism is made possible by the chemical rescue of an inactive mutant of aspartate aminotransferase, where the endogenous general base, Lys258, is replaced with Ala by site-directed mutagenesis. Catalytic activity is restored to this inactive mutant by exogenous amines. The eleven amines studied generate a Brønsted correlation with beta of 0.4 for the transamination of cysteine sulfinate, when steric effects are included in the regression analysis. Localized mutagenesis thus allows the classical Brønsted analysis of transition-state structure to be applied to enzyme-catalyzed reactions.

Amines↗
PubMed1987

Tyrosine 70 increases the coenzyme affinity of aspartate aminotransferase. A site-directed mutagenesis study.

The crucial step in enzymatic transamination is the tautomerization of aldimine/ketimine intermediates, formed between the pyridoxyl coenzyme and the amino/keto acid substrate, which is catalyzed primarily by the active site residue Lys-258 (Malcolm, B. A., and Kirsch, J. F. (1985) Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 132, 915-921; W. L. Finlayson and J. F. Kirsch, in preparation). Tyr-70 is localized in close proximity to Lys-258 and, in addition, forms a hydrogen bond with the coenzyme phosphate. Tyr-70 has been postulated to have an important role in the tautomerization (Kirsch, J. F., Eichele, G., Ford, G. C., Vincent, M. G., Jansonius, J. N., Gehring, H., and Christen, P. (1984) J. Mol. Biol. 174, 497-525). This hypothesis has now been tested by the construction and analysis of a mutant Escherichia coli aspartate aminotransferase in which Tyr-70 has been changed to Phe (Y70F). Y70F retains at least 15% of the maximal activity of the wild type enzyme (WT) (kcat = 170 +/- 15 s-1 for WT versus greater than or equal to 26 +/- 3 s-1 for Y70F and shows increased Michaelis constants for both substrates (KmAsp = 2.5 +/- 0.4 mM; Km alpha Kg = 0.59 +/- 0.08 mM for WT versus KmAsp = 3.9 +/- 0.3 mM; Km alpha Kg = 2.70 +/- 0.02 mM for Y70F (where alpha Kg is alpha-ketoglutarate) ). The spectrophotometrically determined pK a values of the internal aldimines formed between pyridoxal 5'-phosphate (PLP) and Lys-258 are identical for WT and Y70F. In assays where excess L-aspartate and excess PLP are incubated with either WT or Y70F, the mutant enzyme converts the free PLP to free pyridoxamine 5'-phosphate 80-fold faster than WT (k = (3.75 +/- 0.23) X 10(-2)s-1 for Y70F versus (4.90 +/- 0.02) X 10(-4)s-1 for WT). Y70F also converts free pyridoxamine 5'-phosphate to free PLP faster than WT. Thus, Y70F dissociates coenzyme more readily than does WT. It therefore appears that the role of Tyr-70 is mainly in preventing the dissociation of the coenzyme from the enzyme. Tyr-70 does not function in an essential chemical step.

Aspartate Aminotransferases↗