Plasmin reduction by phosphoglycerate kinase is a thiol-independent process.

Phosphoglycerate kinase (PGK) is secreted by tumor cells and facilitates reduction of disulfide bond(s) in plasmin (Lay, A. J., Jiang, X.-M., Kisker, O., Flynn, E., Underwood, A., Condron, R., and Hogg, P. J. (2000) Nature 408, 869-873). The angiogenesis inhibitor, angiostatin, is cleaved from the reduced plasmin by a combination of serine- and metalloproteinases. The chemistry of protein reductants is typically mediated by a pair of closely spaced Cys residues. There are seven Cys in human PGK, and mutation of all seven to Ala did not appreciably affect plasmin reductase activity, although some of the mutations perturbed the tertiary structure of the protein. Cys-379 and Cys-380 are close to the hinge that links the N- and C-terminal domains of PGK. Alkylation/oxidation of Cys-379 and -380 by four different thiol-reactive compounds reduced plasmin reductase activity to 7--35% of control. Binding of 3-phosphoglycerate and/or MgATP to the N- and C-terminal domains of PGK, respectively, triggers a hinge bending conformational change in the enzyme. Incubation of PGK with 3-phosphoglycerate and/or MgATP ablated plasmin reductase activity, with half-maximal inhibitory effects at approximately 1 mm concentration. In summary, reduction of plasmin by PGK is a thiol-independent process, although either alkylation/oxidation of the fast-reacting Cys near the hinge or hinge bending conformational change in PGK perturbs plasmin reduction by PGK, perhaps by obstructing the interaction of plasmin with PGK or perturbing conformational changes in PGK required for plasmin reduction.     

Proteolytic modification of human phosphoglycerate kinase from lymphoblasts

During phytohemagglutinin and concanavalin A-induced transformation of human lymphocytes, phosphoglycerate kinase (PGK) exhibits new electrophoretic forms (pI = 8.5–8.9). Electrophoresis and electrofocusing showed that the new forms are not due to expression of the autosomally linked isozyme found in sperm (PGK-B; pI = 9.7). The multiple electrophoretic forms are the result of protease modification of the sex-linked PGK-A isozyme.     

Electrophoresis of phosphoglycerate kinase

A technique for the visualization of phosphoglycerate kinase on starch gel after electrophoresis is described. Three bands of activity were found in hemolysates prepared from normal red cells. When ATP, a substrate of the enzyme, was incorporated into the gel, only a single band was found. This suggested that ATP complexed with the enzyme and/or produced configurational changes. Incidentally, it was found that ATP markedly altered the electrophoretic mobility of hemoglobin. Red cells of 92 Caucasian males, 121 Caucasian females, 114 Negro males, 10 Negro females, 4 Oriental males, and 4 Oriental females were examined. No evidence of an electrophoretic polymorphism of this enzyme was found. Patterns of activity similar to those found in red cells were found in liver, heart, kidney, and skeletal muscle.This work was supported, in part, by Public Health Service Grant No. 07449 from the National Heart Institute, NIH. Presented, in part, at the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics, Austin, Texas, October 12, 1968.     

Evidence that 1,3-bisphosphoglycerate dissociation from phosphoglycerate kinase is an intrinsically rapid reaction step

The steady-state kinetics of 1,3-bisphosphoglycerate formation through the action of phosphoglycerate kinase on 3-phosphoglycerate and ATP have been examined. The results show that initial velocities determined by the standard method of coupling bisphosphoglycerate production to NADH reduction in the presence of glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase do not differ significantly from those determined in the absence of the latter enzyme. This observation invalidates the proposal that bisphosphoglycerate dissociation from phosphoglycerate kinase is much too slow to account for the high rates of phosphoglycerate turnover observed in the coupled two-enzyme system. The capacity for rapid bisphosphoglycerate production and release is an intrinsic catalytic property of phosphoglycerate kinase that does not require the presence of other enzymes or the involvement of a mechanism of channelized (non-diffusional) transfer of bisphosphoglycerate from the producing enzyme to the consuming one.     

Flexibility and folding of phosphoglycerate kinase

Flexibility and folding of phosphoglycerate kinase, a two-domain monomeric enzyme, have been studied using a wide variety of methods including theoretical approaches. Mutants of yeast phosphoglycerate kinase have been prepared in order to introduce cysteinyl residues as local probes throughout the molecule without perturbating significantly the structural or the functional properties of the enzyme. The apparent reactivity of a unique cysteine in each mutant has been used to study the flexibility of PGK. The regions of larger mobility have been found around residue 183 on segment beta F in the N-domain and residue 376 on helix XII in the C-domain. These regions are also parts of the molecule which unfold first. Ligand binding induces conformational motions in the molecule, especially in the regions located in the cleft. Moreover, the results obtained by introducing a fluorescent probe covalently linked to a cysteine are in agreement with the helix scissor motion of helices 7 and 14 assumed by Blake to direct the hinge bending motion of the domains during the catalytic cycle. The folding process of both horse muscle and yeast phosphoglycerate kinases involves intermediates. These intermediates are more stable in the horse muscle than in the yeast enzyme. In both enzymes, domains behave as structural modules capable of folding and stabilizing independently, but in the horse muscle enzyme the C-domain is more stable and refolds prior to the N-domain, contrary to that which has been observed in the yeast enzyme. A direct demonstration of the independence of domains in yeast phosphoglycerate kinase has been provided following the obtention of separated domains by site-directed mutagenesis. These domains have a native-like structure and refold spontaneously after denaturation by guanidine hydrochloride.     

Thermodynamic study of yeast phosphoglycerate kinase

Enthalpies of binding of MgADP, MgATP, and 3-phosphoglycerate to yeast phosphoglycerate kinase have been determined by flow calorimetry at 9.95-32.00 degrees C. Combination of these data with published dissociation constants [Scopes, R.K. (1978) Eur. J. Biochem. 91, 119-129] yielded the following thermodynamic parameters for the binding of 3-phosphoglycerate at 25 degrees C: delta Go = -6.76 +/- 0.11 kcal mol-1, delta H = 3.74 +/- 0.08 kcal mol-1, delta So = 35.2 +/- 0.6 cal K-1 mol-1, and delta Cp = 0.12 +/- 0.32 kcal K-1 mol-1. The thermal unfolding of phosphoglycerate kinase in the absence and presence of the ligands listed above was studied by differential scanning calorimetry. The temperature of half-completion, t 1/2, of the denaturation and the denaturational enthalpy are increased by the binding of the ligands, the increase in t 1/2 being a manifestation of Le Chatelier's principle and that in enthalpy reflecting the enthalpy of dissociation of the ligand. Only one denaturational peak was observed under all conditions, and in contrast with the case of yeast hexokinase [Takahashi, K., Casey, J.L., & Sturtevant, J.M. (1981) Biochemistry 20, 4693-4697], no definitive evidence for the unfolding of more than one domain was obtained.     

The testis-specific phosphoglycerate kinase gene pgk-2 is a recruited retroposon.

In both humans and mice, two genes encode phosphoglycerate kinase, a key enzyme in the glycolytic pathway. The pgk-1 gene is expressed in all somatic cells, is located on the X chromosome, and contains 10 introns. The pgk-2 gene is expressed only in sperm cells, is located on an autosome, and has no introns. The nucleotide sequence of the pgk-2 gene suggests that it arose from pgk-1 more than 100 million years ago by RNA-mediated gene duplication. The pgk-2 gene may, then, be a transcribed retroposon. Thus, gene duplication by retroposition may have been used as a mechanism for evolutionary diversification.     

Enzymatic activity of immobilized yeast phosphoglycerate kinase

This work reports the first evidence that recombinant yeast phosphoglycerate kinase (PGK) is still significantly active when immobilized on glass and muscovite mica. Using previous work to improve the sensitivity of the existing setup, Tapping Mode atomic force microscopy (AFM) was used in a liquid environment to determine the surface enzyme coverage of derivatized mica and glass slides. When associated to spectrophotometric measurements, the AFM data allows assessing the catalytic constant of surface enzymes and comparing it to bulk values. The validity of the Michaelis-Menten model for surface reactions is discussed, supported by spectroscopic measurements of the surface consumption of 1,3-bis-phosphoglycerate (1,3-BPG). Only a few percent of the enzyme material maintains its initial bulk activity. This value could constitute a guideline for biosensors made with the method used here whenever a rapid assessment of the remaining surface activity is needed.     

Isolation of chloroplastic phosphoglycerate kinase : kinetics of the two-enzyme phosphoglycerate kinase/glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase couple

We report here a method for the isolation of high specific activity phosphoglycerate kinase (EC 2.7.2.3) from chloroplasts. The enzyme has been purified over 200-fold from pea (Pisum sativum L.) stromal extracts to apparent homogeneity with 23% recovery. Negative cooperativity is observed with the two enzyme phosphoglycerate kinase/glyceraldehyde-3-P dehydrogenase (EC 1.2.1.13) couple restored from the purified enzymes when NADPH is the reducing pyridine nucleotide, consistent with earlier results obtained with crude chloroplastic extracts (J Macioszek, LE Anderson [1987] Biochim Biophys Acta 892: 185-190). Michaelis Menten kinetics are observed when 3-phosphoglycerate is held constant and phosphoglycerate kinase is varied, which suggests that phosphoglycerate kinase-bound 1,3-bisphosphoglycerate may be the preferred substrate for glyceraldehyde-3-P dehydrogenase in the chloroplast.