Drosophila melanogaster alcohol dehydrogenase: An electrophoretic study of the AdhS,AdhF, and AdhUF alleloenzymes

The nature and the interconversion of the three multiple forms Adh-5, Adh-4, and Adh-3 of the purified alleloenzymes Adh^S, Adh^F, and Adh^UF from the fruitflyDrosophila melanogaster have been examined. The experiments show that these multiple forms differ from those in crude extracts of flies homozygous at the Adh locus. On electrophoresis in a starch gel containing NAD or NADH, of purified Adh^S which consists of the three Adh forms S-5, S-4, and S-3, five enzymatically active zones appear. This contrasts with the single active zone that arises with crude extracts. Of the five zones that appear with purified enzyme, S-5 gives rise to one, while the other four zones come from the two minor forms S-4 and S-3. The occurrence of the three multiple forms Adh-5, Adh-4, and Adh-3 for each of the purified alleloenzymes is considered due to Adh-5 and, in the case of Adh-4 and Adh-3, deamidation of Adh-5, with the Adh-3 fraction also containing some reversible modified Adh-5. Of the labile amides, at least one must be located in the coenzyme binding region with deamidation preventing coenzyme binding. Pure NAD does not convert Adh-5 to Adh-3 and Adh-1. To produce conversion, the presence of either acetone or butanone along with NAD is necessary. Increased amounts of either acetone or butanone result in increased conversion. In contrast to this, none of the carbonyl compounds cyclohexanone, (+)- and (−)-verbenone, acetaldehyde, acrolein, or crotonaldehyde produces conversion. The ketone group binds to the alcohol binding site in the enzyme-NAD complex. Conversion is considered due to the ketone group binding to a nucleophilic amino acid residue and forming a bridge to the C-4 of the nicotinamide moiety of NAD.     

Alcohol dehydrogenase from the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster. Inhibition studies of the alleloenzymes AdhS and AdhUF

Different metal binding inhibitors of horse liver alcohol dehydrogenase, similarly affect the Drosophila melanogaster AdhS and AdhUF alleloenzymes. However, binding is generally weaker and the experiments show that the alleloenzymes although not zinc metalloenzymes, behave to the metal binding reagents very much as if they were. The metal-directed, affinity-labelling, imidazole derivative BrImPpOH reversibly inhibits, but does not inactivate the alleolenzymes. This confirms there is no active site metal atom with cysteine as a metal ligand, as found in zinc alcohol dehydrogenases. Pyrazole is a strong ethanol-competitive inhibitor of AdhS and AdhUF alleloenzymes. Formation of the ternary enzyme-NAD-pyrazole complex gives an absorption increase between 295-330 nm. This enables an active site titration to be performed and the determination of epsilon (305 nm) of 15.8 . 10(3) M-1 . cm-1. Inhibition experiments with imidazole confirm that with secondary alcohols such as propan-2-ol, a Theorell-Chance mechanism predominates, but with ethanol and primary alcohols, interconversion of the ternary complexes is rate limiting. Salicylate is a coenzyme competitive inhibitor and KEI suggests that the coenzyme adenosine binding region is similar is Drosophila and horse liver alcohol dehydrogenase. Drosophila alcohol dehydrogenase is found not to form a ternary complex with NADH and isobutyramide. In this and other properties it is like carboxymethyl liver alcohol dehydrogenase. Both Drosophila and carboxymethyl alcohol dehydrogenase bind coenzyme in a similar manner to native horse liver alcohol dehydrogenase, but substrate binding differs between each. Inhibition by Cibacrone blue, indicates that amino acid 192 which is lysine in AdhS and threonine in AdhUF, is located in the coenzyme-binding region. Proteolytic activity present in preparations of alcohol dehydrogenase from D. melanogaster, is considered due to a metalloprotease, for which BrImPpOH is a potent inactivator.     

The complete amino acid sequence of three alcohol dehydrogenase alleloenzymes (AdhN-11, AdhS and AdhUF) from the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster.

The sequence of three alcohol dehydrogenase alleloenzymes from the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster has been determined by the sequencing of peptides produced by trypsin, chymotrypsin, thermolysin, pepsin and Staphylococcus aureus-V8-proteinase digestion. The amino acid sequence shows no obvious homology with the published sequences of the horse liver and yeast enzymes, and secondary structure prediction suggests that the nucleotide-binding domain is located in the N-terminal half of the molecule. The amino acid substitutions between AdhN-11 (a point mutation of AdhF), AdhS and AdhUF alleloenzymes were identified. AdhN-11 alcohol dehydrogenase differed from the other two by a glycine-14-(AdhS and AdhUF)-to-aspartic acid substitution, the AdhS enzyme from AdhN-11 and AdhUF enzymes by a threonine-192-(AdhN-11 and AdhUF)-to-lysine (AdhS) substitution and the AdhUF enzyme was found to differ by an alanine-45-(AdhS and AdhN-11)-to-aspartic acid (AdhUF) charge substitution and a 'silent' asparagine-8-(AdhS and AdhN-11)-to-alanine (AdhUF) substitution. Detailed sequence evidence has been deposited as Supplementary Publication SUP 50107 (36 pages) at the British Library Lending Division, Boston Spa, Wetherby, West Yorkshire LS23 7BQ, U.K., from whom copies can be obtained on the terms indicated in Biochem. J. (1978) 169, 5.     

The alcohol dehydrogenase alleloenzymes AdhS and AdhF from the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster: An enzymatic rate assay to determine the active-site concentration

A rapid and reproducible enzymatic rate assay for the quantitative determination of the concentration of active sites is presented for the alleloenzymes Adh^S and Adh^F from Drosophila melanogaster. Using this procedure the turnover numbers as catalytic-center activities were found to be 12.2 sec^–1 for Adh^F and 3.4 sec^–1 for Adh^S with secondary alcohols. This showed a slower dissociation of the coenzyme from the binary enzyme-NADH complex with Adh^S and hence a stronger binding of NADH to this alleloenzyme. With ethanol, the catalytic-center activity was 1.4 sec^–1 for Adh^S and 2.8 sec^–1 for Adh^F, and hence the single amino acid mutation distinguishing the two alleloenzymes also affected hydride transfer.     

Drosophila lebanonensis alcohol dehydrogenase: pH dependence of the kinetic coefficients

The alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) from Drosophila lebanonensis shows 82% positional identity to the alcohol dehydrogenases from Drosophila melanogaster. These insect ADHs belong to the short-chain dehydrogenase/reductase family which lack metal ions in their active site. In this family, it appears that the function of zinc in medium chain dehydrogenases has been replaced by three amino acids, Ser138, Tyr151 and Lys155. The present work on D. lebanonensis ADH has been performed in order to obtain information about reaction mechanism, and possible differences in topology and electrostatic properties in the vicinity of the catalytic residues in ADHs from various species of Drosophila. Thus the pH dependence of various kinetic coefficients has been studied. Both in the oxidation of alcohols and in the reduction of aldehydes, the reaction mechanism of D. lebanonensis ADH in the pH 6-10 region was consistent with a compulsory ordered pathway, with the coenzymes as the outer substrates. Over the entire pH region, the rate limiting step for the oxidation of secondary alcohols such as propan-2-ol was the release of the coenzyme product from the enzyme-NADH complex. In the oxidation of ethanol at least two steps were rate limiting, the hydride transfer step and the dissociation of NADH from the binary enzyme-NADH product complex. In the reduction of acetaldehyde, the rate limiting step was the dissociation of NAD+ from the binary enzyme-NAD+ product complex. The pH dependences of the kon velocity curves for the two coenzymes were the opposite of each other, i.e. kon increased for NAD+ and decreased for NADH with increasing pH. The two curves appeared complex and the kon velocity for the two coenzymes seemed to be regulated by several groups in the free enzyme. The kon velocity for ethanol and the ethanol competitive inhibitor pyrazole increased with pH and was regulated through the ionization of a single group in the binary enzyme-NAD+ complex, with a pKa value of 7.1. The kon velocity for acetaldehyde was pH independent and showed that in the enzyme-NADH complex, the pKa value of the catalytic residue must be above 10. The koff velocity of NAD+ appeared to be partly regulated by the catalytic residue, and protonation resulted in an increased dissociation rate. The koff velocity for NADH and the hydride transfer step was pH independent. In D. lebanonensis ADH, the pKa value of the catalytic residue was 0.5 pH units lower than in the ADHS alleloenzyme from D. melanogaster. Thus it can be concluded that while most of the topology of the active site is mainly conserved in these two distantly related enzymes, the microenvironment and electrostatic properties around the catalytic residues differ.     

Mechanism of action of Drosophila melanogaster alcohol dehydrogenase.

Reported kinetic pH dependence data for alcohol dehydrogenase from Drosophila melanogaster are analyzed with regard to differences in rate behaviour between this non-metallo enzyme and the zinc-containing liver alcohol dehydrogenase present in vertebrates. For the Drosophila enzyme a mechanism of action is proposed according to which catalytic proton release to solution during alcohol oxidation occurs at the binary-complex level as an obligatory step preceding substrate binding. Such proton release involves an ionizing group with a pKa of about 7.6 in the enzyme.NAD+ complex, tentatively identified as a tyrosyl residue. The ionized form of this group is proposed to participate in the binding of alcohol substrates and to act as a nucleophilic catalyst of the subsequent step of hydride ion transfer from the bound alcohol to NAD+. Herein lie fundamental mechanistic differences between the metallo and non-metallo short chain alcohol dehydrogenases.     

Origin of the multiple forms of alcohol dehydrogenase from Drosophila melanogaster.

The three forms of alcohol dehydrogenase (EC 1.1.1.1) within a given strain of Drosophila melanogaster are composed of similar, if not identical, peptide chains as shown by amino acid analysis and peptide fingerprinting. After feeding [carbonyl-¹⁴C]nicotinamide to flies, label is associated with only two of the three forms in the ratio 1:2. Similarly, a fluorescent compound is associated with the same two forms. After purification of this compound and characterization of it by thin layer chromatography and mass spectroscopy, we conclude that the multiple forms of Drosophila alcohol dehydrogenase appear to be caused by the noncovalent binding of 1 and 2 mol of an NAD-carbonyl compound addition complex to the enzyme.     

Variation between electrophoretically identical alleles at the alcohol dehydrogenase locus in Drosophila melanogaster

A new variant of alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH 7lk) was found in a laboratory stock of Drosophila melanogaster. ADH in this stock had the same electrophoretic mobility as the F variant both on acrylamide and on agar. Activity levels were similar to the levels in F flies at temperature between 15 and 25 C. But while ADH F enzyme is inactivated rapidly at 40 C, ADH 7lk is still active. Also, ADH S is not inactivated at this temperature, but has a far lower activity per fly than ADH 7lk. Genetic analysis showed that the new variant is an allele of the Adh locus.     

Synthesis of Drosophila melanogaster alcohol dehydrogenase in yeast

Expression systems for the heterologous expression of Drosophila melanogaster alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae have been designed, analyzed and compared. Four different yeast/Escherichia coli shuttle vectors were constructed and used to transform four different yeast strains. Expression was detectable in ADH- yeast strains, from either a constitutive promoter, yeast ADH1 promoter (ADCp), or a regulated promoter, yeast GALp. The highest amount of D. melanogaster ADH was obtained from a multicopy plasmid with the D. melanogaster Adh gene expressed constitutively under the control of yeast ADCp promoter. The D. melanogaster enzyme was produced in cell extracts, as assessed by Coomassie blue staining and Western blotting after polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis and it was fully active and able to complement the yeast ADH deficiency. Results show that D. melanogaster ADH subunits synthesized in yeast are able to assemble into functional dimeric forms. The synthesized D. melanogaster ADH represents up to 3.5% of the total extracted yeast protein.     

Purification and enzyme stability of alcohol dehydrogenase from Drosophila simulans, Drosophila virilis and Drosophila melanogaster adhS.

Three alcohol dehydrogenases from Drosophila simulans, Drosophila virillis and Drosophila melanogaster adhS (which possesses an alloenzyme with slow electrophoretic mobility) were purified essentially to homogeneity. The purification procedure involves a new step of affinity chromatography, which efficiently lowers the amount of contaminants in the final preparation, producing a very stable enzyme. The purification procedure developed consists of a salmine sulphate precipitation, two CM-Sepharose CL-6B colume-chromatography steps, an affinity-chromatography step and a Sephacryl gel filtration. A minimum of 30-fold purification is obtained and the yield is not less than 34%. The isoelectric points and molar absorption coefficients were determined.     

The involvement of alcohol dehydrogenase and aldehyde dehydrogenase in alcohol/aldehyde metabolism in Drosophila melanogaster

In this study we have examined the roles of alcohol dehydrogenase, aldehyde oxidase, and aldehyde dehydrogenase in the adaptation of Drosophila melanogaster to alcohol environments. Fifteen strains were characterized for genetic variation at the above loci by protein electrophoresis. Levels of in vitro enzyme activity were also determined. The strains examined showed considerable variation in enzyme activity for all three gene-enzyme systems. Each enzyme was also characterized for coenzyme requirements, effect of inhibitors, subcellular location, and tissue specific expression. A subset of the strains was chosen to assess the physiological role of each gene-enzyme system in alcohol and aldehyde metabolism. These strains were characterized for both the ability to utilize alcohols and aldehydes as carbon sources as well as the capacity to detoxify such substrates. The results of the above analyses demonstrate the importance of both alcohol dehydrogenase and aldehyde dehydrogenase in the in vivo metabolism of alcohols and aldehydes.     

Molecular relationships between alcohol dehydrogenase null-activity alleles from natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster.

Alcohol dehydrogenase null-activity alleles extracted from a number of natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster in Tasmania were shown to be molecularly similar by probing, with an oligonucleotide specific to an inserted region in intron 2 of the gene, genomic DNA amplified by the polymerase chain reaction. This insertion had previously been shown to be the cause of the loss of activity in one of the null alleles whose DNA sequence was known. Three Adh null alleles from mainland populations did not contain the insertion. Two of these null alleles, extracted from the Coffs Harbour population in different years, were cloned, and their DNA sequences showed that they were identical and that both had a 438-bp deletion which removed most of exon 2. The third null allele, identified in a sample of flies from Chateau Tahbilk, was shown by 4-bp restriction-endonuclease mapping to contain a 320-bp insertion in intron 1, although this may not be the cause of the loss of activity. The data show that at least three different Adh null alleles have been found in Australian populations and that at least two have been maintained as heterozygotes over a period of years.     

Variation in the direction of selection applied by pentenol to the alcohol dehydrogenase locus in Drosophila melanogaster.

This paper describes selective effects of pentenol-impregnated media on six genotypes at the alcohol dehydrogenase (Adh) locus in D. melanogaster. In the laboratory population studied, developmental times of pre-adults homozygous for an alcohol dehydrogenase "null" allele increased with increasing pentenol concentrations. The developmental times of the other five genotypes, which produced active alcohol dehydrogenases, increased slightly at pentenol concentrations up to 0-0033%, but above this concentration they decreased markedly. In fact on 0-067% pentenol, the highest concentration tested, developmental times of these five genotypes were between 9 and 24 h less than their developmental times on media lacking pentenol. The magnitude of the reduction in developmental time differed significantly between genotypes and was positively correlated with alcohol dehydrogenase activity. Pentenol had toxic effects on adults and significant differences were found between survival percentages of adults of different genotypes on pentenol-impregnated media. These survival percentages were negatively correlated with alcohol dehydrogenase activities. Therefore selective differences between genotypes in adult survival were negatively correlated with those in developmental times. The variations in the direction of selection are discussed in terms of their possible biochemical basis and their effects on the maintenance of Adh polymorphisms.     

Comparison of alcohol dehydrogenase expression in Drosophila melanogaster and D. simulans

Alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) gene expression was analyzed in Drosophila melanogaster and its sibling species D. simulans. The levels of ADH activity, ADH-cross-reacting material (CRM), and ADH-mRNA were analyzed for several strains of each species, which derive from diverse geographic locations around the world. There is considerable quantitative variation in ADH activity, CRM level, and RNA level among strains within species at all developmental stages. However, the only consistent differences between the two species are in pupal RNA level and in late-adult activity and CRM level. Late-adult melanogaster flies that are homozygous for the Slow allozyme have approximately twice the level of ADH activity and CRM as do simulans flies. The regression of activity on CRM over strains is highly significant and essentially the same for each species, which means that most, if not all, of the activity difference between the species is due to a difference in concentration of the ADH protein. In contrast, there is no significant regression of CRM level on mRNA level in adults of either species; nor is there a significant difference in RNA level between species. Therefore, the difference in ADH protein concentration is not due to RNA template availability. Thus, the interspecific difference in ADH level in adults must be due either to a difference in the rate of translation of the two RNAs or to a difference in protein stability.     

Enzyme instability and proteolysis during the purification of an alcohol dehydrogenase from Drosophila melanogaster.

The alcohol dehydrogenase of the Drosophila melanogaster adhUF allele (alloenzyme with ultra-fast electrophoretic mobility) was unstable in crude or partially purified preparations. Sodium dodecyl sulphate/polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis indicated that inactivation was porbably due to proteolytic degradation, and new method of purification of the enzyme was developed. After three steps, namely salmine sulphate precipitation, hydroxyapatite chromatography and Sephadex G-100 gel filtration, a 10-fold purified preparation was obtained. The enzyme produced was relatively stable compared with alcohol dehydrogenase purified by other methods, and was shown to be proteinase-free. The enzyme had a subunit mol.wt. of 24000 and had a single thiol residue per subunit available for titration with 5,5'-dithiobis-(2-nitrobenzoic acid). The amino acid composition and C-terminal amino acid sequence of the enzyme were determined. The substrate specificity of this alcohol dehydrogenase was also characterized. These results are discussed in relation to experiments on the evolutionary significance of thermostability at the adh locus.