Steady state kinetic mechanism of the Escherichia coli coenzyme A transferase.

Developing chloroplasts isolated from greening cotyledons and isolated etioplasts were capable of synthesizing and accumulating Mg-protoporphyrin IX monoester and longer wavelength metalloporphyrins when incubated in the dark in the presence of protoporphyrin and cofactors. These results constituted the first unambiguous demonstration of the insertion of magnesium into exogenous protoporphyrin in a cell-free system from higher plants. The metalloporphyrin synthetic activity did not occur in the absence of the plastids or when the plastids were heated in a 100 °C water bath for 2 min. It is thus suggested that, in higher plants, the in vitro insertion of magnesium into protoporphyrin is an enzymatic reaction.