Tryptophan fluorescence monitors multiple conformational changes required for glutamine phosphoribosylpyrophosphate amidotransferase interdomain signaling and catalysis.

Single tryptophan residues were incorporated into each of three peptide segments that play key roles in the structural transition of ligand-free, inactive glutamine phosphoribosylpyrophosphate (PRPP) amidotransferase to the active enzyme-substrate complex. Intrinsic tryptophan fluorescence and fluorescence quenching were used to monitor changes in a phosphoribosyltransferase (PRTase) "flexible loop", a "glutamine loop", and a C-terminal helix. Steady state fluorescence changes resulting from substrate binding were used to calculate binding constants and to detect the structural rearrangements that coordinate reactions at active sites for glutamine hydrolysis and PRTase catalysis. Pre-steady state kinetics of enzyme.PRPP and enzyme.PRPP.glutamine complex formation were determined from stopped-flow fluorescence measurements. The kinetics of the formation of the enzyme.PRPP complex were consistent with a model with two or more steps in which rapid equilibrium binding of PRPP is followed by a slow enzyme isomerization. This isomerization is ascribed to the closing of the PRTase flexible loop and is likely the rate-limiting step in the reaction of PRPP with NH(3). The pre-steady state kinetics for binding glutamine to the binary enzyme. PRPP complex could also be fit to a model involving rapid equilibrium binding of glutamine followed by an enzyme isomerization step. The changes monitored by fluorescence account for the interconversions between "end state" structures determined previously by X-ray crystallography and define an intermediate enzyme.PRPP conformer.