Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Studies of Phosphoproteins [microform] PDF Download

Author: Harm Jan Vogel
Publisher: National Library of Canada
ISBN: 9780315090217
Category : Nuclear magnetic resonance
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
31 Phosphorus Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (31 P-NMR) has recently become a popular tool to study metabolism in vivo. Here it is demonstrated that additional metabolic information can be obtained by similar studies using whole cell extracts. The resonances in such 31 P-NMR studies can be readily assigned on the basis of their chemical shifts. However, pH titration and metal binding studies of ATP and ADP methylene- and fluoroanalogues have shown that this parameter is not always easily interpretable in terms of molecular detail. Thus although the chemical shifts usually provide reliable information about the chemical nature of the linkage that is present in a phosphoprotein, other parameters must be measured to abstract additional molecular information. This dissertation is concerned mainly with the measurement and analysis of the linewidth and the pH titration behaviour of a variety of phosphoproteins as measured by 31 P-NMR spectroscopy. A first group of phosphoproteins that has been studied comprises those in which the phosphorus moiety is involved in metal ion complexation, with hen egg-yolk phosvitin as a prototype. 31 P-NMR pH titrations, together with assessment of the accessibility of aromatic residues as determined by photo-laser CIDNP 1 H-NMR experiments, indicated that this protein has an unusual tertiary structure which is primarily stabilised by salt linkages and hydrogen bond interactions involving the phosphoryl moieties. A second group of phosphoproteins includes all enzymes and proteins whose activity is controlled by reversible phosphorylation. Analysis of the frequency dependence of the linewidths measured in 31 P-NMR spectra obtained at five different magnetic field strengths has shown that the regulatory sites of glycogen phosphorylase a and hen egg-white ovalbumin have some flexibility. A similar site on polymerized rabbit skeletal tropomyosin also showed mobility. It was further demonstrated that all these residues could be titrated, thus indicating their accessibility to solvent. Since similar behaviour was recently reported for regulatory phosphorylation sites of troponin T and myosin light chains, it appears that flexibility and titrability are a common feature of such sites. The phosphate previously thought to be covalently attached to bacterial conjugative pili was shown to be rigidly associated phospholipids. A third group of phosphoproteins comprises all enzymes with covalent phosphoryl intermediates. These studies have indicated that such entities are generally immobilized in the active sites of the enzymes. Other reports had already demonstrated that such residues generally do not titrate. In particular, studies on the N-3 phosphohistidine residue of E. coli succinyl-CoA synthetase have provided insight into the complex mechanism of this multisubunit enzyme. Evidence has been obtained for conformational changes of this residue that are induced by addition of other substrates. Moreover it was shown that the active sites of this enzyme do not act independently but act in a catalytic cooperative way. Further support for such behaviour was obtained from inhibition experiments and from studies making use of hybrids of the enzyme containing chemically modified inactive subunits. Moreover the conformational flexibility of the enzyme molecule, necessary to provide for such intrasubunit communication, was deduced from 'H-NMR studies. Proteolytic- and thermal inactivation studies on the mechanistically related enzyme ATP-citrate lyase showed that this enzyme undergoes conformational changes by binding of a wide variety of phosphorylated compounds. Nucleotide binding site mapping studies have indicated the determining role of the phosphoryl moieties of ligands in the high precision recognition between this enzyme and its ligands.