J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 260, Issue 30, 16148-16155, Dec, 1985
Kinetic studies of the lipid-activated pyruvate oxidase flavoprotein of Escherichia coli
MW Mather and RB Gennis
Pyruvate oxidase is a flavoprotein dehydrogenase isolated from Escherichia
coli which catalyzes the oxidative decarboxylation of pyruvate to acetate
and CO2. In vivo, the enzyme can bind to the bacterial membrane and reduce
ubiquinone-8, feeding electrons into the respiratory chain. The purified
enzyme has been shown previously to bind to phospholipids and detergents
and, upon doing so, is activated. The turnover with ferricyanide as an
electron acceptor increases 20- to 30-fold upon lipid binding. In this
work, initial velocity and stop- flow kinetics are used to investigate the
activation of this enzyme. It is shown that the unactivated form of the
enzyme is markedly hysteretic. Progress curves at low substrate
concentrations show an initial acceleration in enzyme turnover. This is
consistent with the results of stop-flow experiments. Rates obtained for
either the reduction of the unactivated flavoprotein by pyruvate or its
reoxidation by ferricyanide in single turnover experiments are much slower
than the rates predicted by observed turnover in initial velocity studies,
in some cases by more than 2 orders of magnitude. The data are best
explained by the slow interconversion between two forms of the enzyme, one
with low turnover and one which rapidly turns over. As isolated, the enzyme
is highly unreactive, as revealed by the stop- flow experiments. During
turnover, even in the absence of lipid activators, some of the enzyme
converts to the rapid-turnover form. This slow interconversion is shown by
kinetic simulation to preclude a steady state from being established. Lipid
activators appear to shift the equilibrium to favor the rapid-turnover form
of the enzyme. Once the enzyme is "locked" into an activated conformation,
the hysteresis is no longer observed, and the stop-flow results are in
agreement with data obtained from initial velocity experiments. Activation
appears to result in both increased rates of electron transfer into and out
of the flavin.