In vivo phosphorylation of sorghum leaf phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase

PHOSPHOENOLPYRUVATE CARBOXYLASE: A Ubiquitous, Highly Regulated Enzyme in Plants

Since plant phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPC) was last reviewed in the Annual Review of Plant Physiology over a decade ago (O'Leary 1982), significant advances have been made in our knowledge of this oligomeric, cytosolic enzyme. This review highlights this exciting progress in plant PEPC research by focusing on the three major areas of recent investigation: the enzymology of the protein; its posttranslational regulation by reversible protein phosphorylation and opposing metabolite effectors; and the structure, expression, and molecular evolution of the nuclear PEPC genes. It is hoped that the next ten years will be equally enlightening, especially with respect to the three-dimensional structure of the plant enzyme, the molecular analysis of its highly regulated protein-Ser/Thr kinase, and the elucidation of its associated signal-transduction pathways in various plant cell types.

Regulatory phosphorylation of Sorghum leaf phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase. Identification of the protein-serine kinase and some elements of the signal-transduction cascade

The phosphoenolpyruvate (PPrv) carboxylase isozyme involved in C4 photosynthesis undergoes a day/night reversible phosphorylation process in leaves of the C4 plant, Sorghum. Ser8 of the target enzyme oscillates between a high (light) and a low (dark) phosphorylation status. Both in vivo and in vitro, phosphorylation of dark-form carboxylase was accompanied by an increase in the apparent Ki of the feedback inhibitor L-malate and an increase in Vmax. Feeding detached leaves various photosynthetic inhibitors, i.e. 3-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)-1,1-dimethylurea, gramicidin and DL-glyceraldehyde, prevented PPrv carboxylase phosphorylation in the light, thus suggesting that the cascade involves the photosynthetic apparatus as the light signal receptor, and presumably has the electron transfer chain and the Calvin-Benson cycle as components in the signal-transduction chain. Two protein-serine kinases capable of phosphorylating PPrv carboxylase in vitro have been partially purified from light-adapted leaves. One was isolated on a calmodulin-Sepharose column; it was calcium-dependent but did not require calmodulin for activity. The other was purified on a blue-dextran-agarose column and the only Me2+ required for activity was Mg2+. In reconstituted phosphorylation assays, only the latter caused the expected decrease in malate sensitivity of PPrv carboxylase suggesting that this protein is the genuine PPrv-carboxylase-kinase. Desalted extracts from light-adapted leaves possessed a considerably greater phosphorylation capacity with immunopurified dephosphorylated PPrv carboxylase as substrate than did dark extracts. This light stimulation was insensitive to type 2A protein phosphatase inhibitors, okadaic acid and microcystin-LR, which suggests that the kinase is a controlled step in the cascade which leads to phosphorylation of PPrv carboxylase. The higher phosphorylation capacity of light-adapted leaf tissue was nullified by pretreatment with the cytosolic protein synthesis inhibitor, cycloheximide. Thus, protein turnover is involved as part of the mechanism controlling the activity of the kinase purified on blue-dextran-agarose. However, no information is available with respect to the specific nature of the link between the above-mentioned light transducing steps and the protein kinase that achieves the physiological response. Finally, the in vivo phosphorylation site (Ser8) in the N-terminal region of the C4 type Sorghum PPrv carboxylase is also present in a non-photosynthetic form of the Sorghum enzyme (Ser7), as deduced by cDNA sequence analysis.

Oligomeric enzymes in the C4 pathway of photosynthesis

This review deals with the factors controlling the aggregation-state of several enzymes involved in C4 photosynthesis, namely phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase, NAD-and NADP-malic enzyme, NADP-malic dehydrogenase and pyruvate, phosphate dikinase and its regulatory protein. All of these enzymes are oligomeric and have been shown to undergo changes in their quaternary structure in vitro under different conditions. The activity changes linked to variations in aggregation-state are discussed in terms of their putative physiological role in the regulation of C4 metabolism.

Regulatory phosphorylation of serine-15 in maize phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase by a C4-leaf protein-serine kinase

We have recently reported that the light-induced changes in the enzymatic and regulatory properties of maize leaf phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase are attributed to the regulatory seryl phosphorylation of this C4-photosynthesis enzyme. In the present study, the darkform target enzyme was phosphorylated/activated in vitro by a maize leaf protein-serine kinase, and the 32P-labeled regulatory site phosphopeptide was purified from a tryptic digest by metal-ion affinity and reversed-phase chromatography. Automated Edman degradation analysis by covalent protein sequencing technology revealed that the amino acid sequence of this phosphoseryl peptide is His-His-Ser(P)-Ile-Asp-Ala-Gln-Leu-Arg. This nonapeptide, which corresponds exactly to residues 13-21 in the deduced primary sequence of the maize leaf carboxylase, is far removed from recently identified active-site cysteine (Cys-553) and lysine (Lys-606) residues in the C-terminal region of the primary structure. Comparative analysis of the deduced N-terminal sequences of C3-, C4-, and Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM)-leaf phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylases suggests that the motif of Lys/Arg-X-X-Ser is an important structural requirement of the C4- and CAM-leaf protein-serine kinases.

Kinetic evidence of the existence of a regulatory phosphoenolpyruvate binding site in maize leaf phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase

Phenylphosphate, a structural analog of phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP), was found to be an activator of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEP carboxylase) purified from maize leaves. This finding suggested the presence in the enzyme of a regulatory site, to which PEP could bind. We carried out kinetic studies on this enzyme using controlled concentrations of free PEP and of Mg-PEP complex and developed a theoretical kinetic model of the reaction. In summary, the main conclusions drawn from our results, and taken as assumptions of the model, were the following: (i) The affinity of the active site for the complex Mg-PEP is much higher than that for free PEP and Mg2+ ions, and therefore it can be considered that the preferential substrate of the PEP-catalyzed reaction is Mg-PEP. (ii) The enzyme has a regulatory site specific for free PEP, to which Mg2+ ions can not bind. (iii) The binding of free PEP, or an analog molecule, to this regulatory site yields a modified enzyme that has much lower apparent Km values and apparent Vmax values than the unmodified enzyme. So, free PEP behaves as an excellent activator of the reaction at subsaturating substrate concentrations, and as an inhibitor at saturating substrate concentrations. These findings may have important physiological implications on the regulation of the PEP carboxylase in vivo activity and, consequently, of the C4 pathway, since increased reaction rates would be obtained when the concentration of PEP rises, even at limiting Mg2+ concentrations.

Regulatory seryl-phosphorylation of C4 phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase by a soluble protein kinase from maize leaves

A reconstituted system composed of purified phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEP-Case) and a soluble protein kinase (PK) from green maize leaves was developed to critically assess the effects of in vitro protein phosphorylation on the catalytic and regulatory (malate sensitivity) properties of the target enzyme. The PK was partially purified from light-adapted leaf tissue by ammonium sulfate fractionation (0-60% saturation fraction) of a crude extract and blue dextran-agarose affinity chromatography. The resulting preparation was free of PEPCase. This partially purified protein kinase activated PEPCase from dark-adapted green maize leaves in an ATP-, Mg2+-, time-, and temperature-dependent fashion. Concomitant with these changes in PEPCase activity was a marked decrease in the target enzyme's sensitivity to feedback inhibition by L-malate. The PK-mediated incorporation of 32P from [gamma-32P]ATP into the protein substrate was directly correlated with these changes in PEPCase activity and malate sensitivity. The maximal molar 32P-incorporation value was about 0.25 per 100-kDa PEPCase subunit (i.e., 1 per holoenzyme). Phosphoamino acid analysis of the 32P-labeled target enzyme by two-dimensional thin-layer electrophoresis revealed the exclusive presence of phosphoserine. These in vitro results, together with our recent studies on the light-induced changes in phosphorylation status of green maize leaf PEPCase in vivo (J. A. Jiao and R. Chollet (1988) Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 261, 409-417), collectively provide the first unequivocal evidence that the seryl-phosphorylation of the dark-form enzyme by a soluble protein kinase is responsible for the changes in catalytic activity and malate sensitivity of C4 PEPCase observed in vivo during dark/light transitions of the parent leaf tissue.