Marked Increase in the Regioselectivity of Radical Substitution: Minisci Reaction in a Two-Phase System

Hydrolysis of picolinylprolines by prolidase. A general mechanism for the dual-metal ion containing aminopeptidases

The velocity of enzymic cleavage of 4-substituted picolinylprolines by swine kidney prolidase approaches that of physiological dipeptides, but depends substantially upon the nature of the pyridine-ring substituent. The pH dependence of kcat/Km for picolinylproline is sigmoidal, with optimum activity on the acidic limb and a delimiting enzymic pKa of 6.6, unlike glycylproline (bell-shaped pH profile, maximum at pH 7.7). Productive chelation to an active site metal ion by the N terminus of substrates is indicated, with a water molecule ligated to that hyper(Lewis)acidic center prior to substrate binding supplying the pKa of 6.6. The rate-governing catalytic step differs according to the 4-substituent on the picolinyl residue; productive binding is slow in the case of electron-withdrawing groups, but subsequent nucleophilic addition to the metal ion-activated scissile linkage becomes controlling with more basic pyridine rings. Rate constants yield a Brønsted-type correlation with substrate pKa, providing a gauge of active-site Lewis acidity. A mechanism is suggested involving the cooperative participation of two especially acidic metal ions positioned adjacently within the active site (situated as in an homologous and structurally characterized aminopeptidase), with both serving to stabilize a bridging carboxamide-hydrate intermediate.

Inactivation of Escherichia coli pyruvate formate-lyase by hypophosphite: evidence for a rate-limiting phosphorus-hydrogen bond cleavage

Recently, Knappe and co-workers [Knappe, J., Neugebauer, F. A., Blaschkowski, H. P., & Ganzler, M. (1984) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 81, 1332] have shown that the catalytically active form of pyruvate formate-lyase from Escherichia coli is associated with a protein-bound organic free radical which is quenched upon enzyme inactivation by oxygen or hypophosphite. Our interest in the chemical mechanism of this unusual enzymatic reaction has led us to investigate several key aspects of the inactivation of the lyase by hypophosphite and its relationship to the normal enzymatic reaction. We report here that the inactivation of both the free and acetylated forms of the lyase is subject to a primary kinetic isotope effect using [2H2]hypophosphite. This suggests that phosphorus-hydrogen bond cleavage is at least partially rate limiting during inactivation. In addition, the inactivated enzyme can be fully reactivated. We have also determined a Vmax/Km isotope effect of 3.6 +/- 0.7 for pyruvate formation from [2H]formate and acetyl coenzyme A. Thus, carbon-hydrogen bond cleavage is partially rate limiting in the normal reverse reaction. On the basis of our findings, the previous work of Knappe and co-workers, the likelihood that hypophosphite is a formate analogue, the known susceptibility of both hypophosphite and formate to homolysis, and a chemical precedent for homolytic cleavage of pyruvate, we offer a preliminary mechanistic proposal for the lyase reaction.