The anomalous properties of the glutamate dehydrogenase-NADPH-alpha-ketoglutarate complex are not ascribable to a carbonyl addition reaction.

The glutamate dehydrogenase-NADPH-alpha-ketoglutarate complex, an active intermediate on the reaction pathway has a number of unusual properties: 1) it is the only blue-shifted natural complex of this enzyme; 2) it has an anomalously slow rate of dissociation; 3) its off-rate shows a substantial pH-independent D2O solvent isotope effect not exhibited by any other ternary complex of this enzyme; and 4) it has an unusually large enthalpy of interaction parameter. These properties must be ascribable to at least one of the two possibilities conferred on the complex by the presence of the alpha-carbonyl group of alpha-ketoglutarate; the ability to engage in carbonyl addition reactions; and/or the ability to form a specific hydrogen bond. Oxalylglycine, a competitive inhibitor of alpha-ketoglutarate in this enzyme-catalyzed reaction, provides a means of discriminating between these two modes of action. The structure of oxalylglycine provides a dicarboxylic compound which has the same intercarboxylate proton distance and has a carbonyl group in a position spatially analogous to that of alpha-ketoglutarate. Its carbonyl group, however, is that of an amide group and cannot, therefore, engage in carbonyl addition reactions, but can hydrogen bond. Therefore, any effects observed with both oxalylglycine and alpha-ketoglutarate must be ascribed to formation of specific alpha-carbonyl hydrogen bonding, whereas any effects observed with alpha-ketoglutarate alone must be due to an alpha-carbonyl addition reaction. We have used this logic to test the source of the four phenomena listed above. In each case, oxalylglycine and alpha-ketoglutarate showed the same effect. Therefore, we conclude that all four phenomena are in fact due to the formation of a specific alpha-carbonyl hydrogen bond and that the specific carbonyl addition reaction between alpha-ketoglutarate and an enzyme lysine group, postulated in one proposed catalytic mechanism, does not occur.

Thermodynamic interactions in the glutamate dehydrogenase-NADPH-oxalylglycine complex.

The enzyme-reduced coenzyme-alpha-ketoglutarate ternary complex is a critical intermediate in the glutamate dehydrogenase-catalyzed reaction. Oxalylglycine, a structural analog of alpha-ketoglutarate which contains an amide carbonyl group in place of a reducible ketone group, is one of the few compounds known to complete with alpha-ketoglutarate itself. In order to examine the role of the ketone group of alpha-ketoglutarate in the ternary complex, we have carried out a calorimetric study of the corresponding oxalylglycine ternary complex, determining the complete delta H, delta G, delta S, and delta Cp profiles and the corresponding interaction parameters for that complex and have compared the various parameters with the corresponding ones previously reported for the alpha-ketoglutarate ternary complex. While the overall delta G values of the two ternary complexes differ only slightly, the enzyme-NADPH-oxalylglycine ternary complex appears to achieve much of its stability from a very tight enzyme-oxalylglycine binary complex with little or no contribution from favorable interactions in the ternary complex, while the alpha-ketoglutarate ternary complex appears to achieve the same stability by a large interaction starting from a very weak enzyme-alpha-ketoglutarate binary complex. Consideration of the enthalpic profiles, however, show that this delta G-derived picture is deceptive. The excess binding energy which stabilizes the oxalylglycine binary is in fact due to hydrogen bonding of the amide group of oxalylglycine to the enzyme; in forming the ternary complex, this hydrogen bonding is lost in favor of forming an oxalylglycine-NADPH interaction, which is very similar to the alpha-ketoglutarate-NADPH interaction which stabilizes the alpha-ketoglutarate ternary complex. We conclude that the alpha-ketoglutarate-NADPH interaction must depend on either hydrogen bonding to or steric hindrance by the ketone group and that the existence of this energetically large interaction cannot be ascribed to imine formation between the keto group and enzyme. These findings also indicate the locus on the reaction coordinate where the reduced coenzyme plays a critical role, a role other than its obvious function as a hydride donor.

Temperature-dependent delta C0p generated by a shift in equilibrium between macrostates of an enzyme.

Substantial negative heat capacity changes (delta C0p' s) have frequently been observed to accompany the formation of protein-ligand complexes. Glutamate dehydrogenase and horse liver alcohol dehydrogenase, however, have been reported to form binary complexes with coenzyme with negligible delta H0p' and only small delta C0p' s. Although many intriguing mechanisms have been proposed to account for the observed phenomena, there is little direct experimental evidence available which might provide a basis for evaluating the contributions of delta C0p' s of complex formation from the various mechanistic sources or even for distinguishing between them. However, if, as Eftink and Biltonen have suggested, a shift in equilibrium between macrostates contributes significantly to an observed delta C0p' s for a given reaction, it should be possible to characterize such a system by measuring the temperature dependence of the delta C0p'. Despite this, few studies have determined delta H0' values at more than two temperatures. We have now measured the temperature dependence of the delta H0' (and, thereby, that of the delta C0p') of the formation of an enzyme-reduced coenzyme complex in an attempt to provide such a basis and have found that the entire delta C0p' of complex formation is accounted for by a temperature-induced shift of an equilibrium between the different forms of the free enzyme.