Pyruvate kinase functions in hot and cold organs of tuna

Summary The skipjack tuna maintains its red skeletal musculature well above ambient temperatures while the temperature of the heart is within 1°C of that of the water. These two tissues exhibit tissue specific forms of pyruvate kinase. The red muscle has one form while the heart has two.TheK_m(PEP) of the red muscle enzymes rises with temperature, within the normal temperature range of the tissue. The affinity of the major form of the heart enzyme for phosphoenolpyruvate is relatively independent of temperature over the physiological temperature range.K_m(ADP) values are temperature independent for both enzymes.Inhibition by alanine of both enzymes is temperature dependent and rises with temperature. The same is true of ATP inhibition of the heart enzyme, but ATP inhibition of the red muscle enzyme is temperature independent. Fructose diphosphate reverses alanine and ATP inhibition at all temperatures.With both enzymes, temperature affects substrate affinities and the sensitivity of the enzyme to metabolite effectors. These effects can be rationalized in terms of physiological significance only in the case of the red muscle enzyme.List of abbreviations ADP adenosine diphosphate - ATP adenosine triphosphate - EDTA ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid - FDP fructose 1,6 diphosphate - LDH lactate dehydrogenase - NADH nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (reduced) - NAD nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (oxidized) - PEP phosphoenol pyruvate