Removal of the tryptophan 139 side chain in Escherichia coli D-3-phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase produces a dimeric enzyme without cooperative effects

Escherichia coli d-3-phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase (PGDH) is a homotetrameric enzyme whose activity is allosterically regulated by l-serine, the end-product of its metabolic pathway. Previous studies have shown that PGDH displays two modes of cooperative interaction. One is between the l-serine binding sites and the other is between the l-serine binding sites and the active sites. Tryptophan 139 participates in an intersubunit contact near the active site catalytic residues. Site-specific mutagenesis of tryptophan 139 to glycine results in the dissociation of the tetramer to a pair of dimers and in the loss of cooperativity in serine binding and between serine binding and inhibition. The results suggest that the magnitude of inhibition of activity at a particular active site is primarily dependent on serine binding to that subunit but that activity can be modulated in a cooperative manner by interaction with adjacent subunits. The disruption of the nucleotide domain interface in PGDH by mutating Trp-139 suggests the potential for a critical role of this interface in the cooperative allosteric processes in the native tetrameric enzyme.