| Abstract: | Covalent modification of two of the four cysteine-149 residues of yeast glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase, at pH 8.5, decreases the reactivity of the remaining two cysteine-149 residues and essentially inactivates the protein. The structure of the modifying reagent has only a secondary influence on this half-of-the-sites effect. Reactivity studies, together with the existing X-ray and sequence studies, suggest that the four active sites are initially functionally identical both in activity and in cysteine reactivity. The half-of-the-sites effect therefore arises in part or in whole from ligand-induced negatively co-operative conformational changes. A detailed kinetic study with iodoacetamide gives relative values of two rapidly reacting groups, a third more slowly reacting, and a fourth very slowly reacting group. These data, added to the existing data on cytidine triphosphate synthetase and alkaline phosphatase, suggest that the half-of-the-sites phenomena in many enzymes may be explained by ligand-induced negative co-operativity triggered by binding or covalent bond formation or both. |
