Georg Wille

Covalently Bound Substrate at the Regulatory Site of Yeast Pyruvate Decarboxylases Triggers Allosteric Enzyme Activation

The mechanism by which the enzyme pyruvate decarboxylase from two yeast species is activated allosterically has been elucidated. A total of seven three-dimensional structures of the enzyme, of enzyme variants, or of enzyme complexes from two yeast species, three of them reported here for the first time, provide detailed atomic resolution snapshots along the activation coordinate. The prime event is the covalent binding of the substrate pyruvate to the side chain of cysteine 221, thus forming a thiohemiketal. This reaction causes the shift of a neighboring amino acid, which eventually leads to the rigidification of two otherwise flexible loops, one of which provides two histidine residues necessary to complete the enzymatically competent active site architecture. The structural data are complemented and supported by kinetic investigations and binding studies, providing a consistent picture of the structural changes occurring upon enzyme activation.

The crystal structure of pyruvate decarboxylase from Kluyveromyces lactis : Implications for the substrate activation mechanism of this enzyme

The crystal structure of pyruvate decarboxylase from Kluyveromyces lactis has been determined to 2.26 Å resolution. Like other yeast enzymes, Kluyveromyces lactis pyruvate decarboxylase is subject to allosteric substrate activation. Binding of substrate at a regulatory site induces catalytic activity. This process is accompanied by conformational changes and subunit rearrangements. In the nonactivated form of the corresponding enzyme from Saccharomyces cerevisiae, all active sites are solvent accessible due to the high flexibility of loop regions 106–113 and 292–301. The binding of the activator pyruvamide arrests these loops. Consequently, two of four active sites become closed. In Kluyveromyces lactis pyruvate decarboxylase, this half‐side closed tetramer is present even without any activator. However, one of the loops (residues 105–113), which are flexible in nonactivated Saccharomyces cerevisiae pyruvate decarboxylase, remains flexible. Even though the tetramer assemblies of both enzyme species are different in the absence of activating agents, their substrate activation kinetics are similar. This implies an equilibrium between the open and the half‐side closed state of yeast pyruvate decarboxylase tetramers. The completely open enzyme state is favoured for Saccharomyces cerevisiae pyruvate decarboxylase, whereas the half‐side closed form is predominant for Kluyveromyces lactis pyruvate decarboxylase. Consequently, the structuring of the flexible loop region 105–113 seems to be the crucial step during the substrate activation process of Kluyveromyces lactis pyruvate decarboxylase.

Crystallization and preliminary X-ray diffraction analysis of full-length and proteolytically activated pyruvate oxidase from Escherichia coli

The thiamine diphosphate- and flavin-dependent peripheral membrane enzyme pyruvate oxidase from Escherichia coli (EcPOX) has been crystallized in the full-length form and as a proteolytically activated C-terminal truncation variant which lacks the last 23 amino acids (Delta23 EcPOX). Crystals were grown by the hanging-drop vapour-diffusion method using either protamine sulfate (full-length EcPOX) or 2-methyl-2,4-pentanediol (Delta23 EcPOX) as precipitants. Native data sets were collected at a X-ray home source to a resolution of 2.9 A. The two forms of EcPOX crystallize in different space groups. Whereas full-length EcPOX crystallizes in the tetragonal space group P4(3)2(1)2 with two monomers per asymmetric unit, the crystals of Delta23 EcPOX belong to the orthorhombic space group P2(1)2(1)2(1) and contain 12 monomers per asymmetric unit.