Negative co-operativity in glutamate dehydrogenase. Involvement of the 2-position in glutamate in the induction of conformational changes

Dissecting the Antenna in Human Glutamate Dehydrogenase: Understanding Its Role in Subunit Communication and Allosteric Regulation

Glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) is a homohexameric enzyme that catalyzes the reversible oxidative deamination of l-glutamate. While GDH is found in all living organisms, only that from animals is highly allosterically regulated by a wide array of metabolites. Because only animal GDH has a 50-residue antenna domain, we hypothesized that it was critical for allostery. To this end, we previously replaced the antenna with the loop found in bacteria, and the resulting chimera was no longer regulated by purine nucleotides. Hence, it seemed logical that the purpose of the antenna is to exert the subunit communication necessary for heterotrophic allosteric regulation. Here, we revisit the antenna deletion studies by retaining 10 more of the human GDH (hGDH) residues without adding the bacterial loop. Unexpectedly, the results were profoundly different than before. The basal activity of the mutant is only ∼13% of that of the wild type but ∼100 times more sensitive to all allosteric activators. In contrast, the mutant is still affected by all of the tested inhibitors to approximately the same degree. The resulting antenna-less mutant retained its negative cooperativity with respect to the coenzyme, again suggesting that intersubunit communication is intact. Finally, the mutant still exhibits substrate inhibition, albeit there are differences in the details. We present a model in which the majority of the antenna is not directly involved in allosteric regulation per se but rather may be responsible for improving enzymatic efficiency by acting as a conduit for substrate binding energy between subunits.

The structure and allosteric regulation of mammalian glutamate dehydrogenase

Glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) is a homohexameric enzyme that catalyzes the reversible oxidative deamination of l-glutamate to 2-oxoglutarate. Only in the animal kingdom is this enzyme heavily allosterically regulated by a wide array of metabolites. The major activators are ADP and leucine, while the most important inhibitors include GTP, palmitoyl CoA, and ATP. Recently, spontaneous mutations in the GTP inhibitory site that lead to the hyperinsulinism/hyperammonemia (HHS) syndrome have shed light as to why mammalian GDH is so tightly regulated. Patients with HHS exhibit hypersecretion of insulin upon consumption of protein and concomitantly extremely high levels of ammonium in the serum. The atomic structures of four new inhibitors complexed with GDH complexes have identified three different allosteric binding sites. Using a transgenic mouse model expressing the human HHS form of GDH, at least three of these compounds were found to block the dysregulated form of GDH in pancreatic tissue. EGCG from green tea prevented the hyper-response to amino acids in whole animals and improved basal serum glucose levels. The atomic structure of the ECG-GDH complex and mutagenesis studies is directing structure-based drug design using these polyphenols as a base scaffold. In addition, all of these allosteric inhibitors are elucidating the atomic mechanisms of allostery in this complex enzyme.

A novel mechanism of V-type zinc inhibition of glutamate dehydrogenase results from disruption of subunit interactions necessary for efficient catalysis

Bovine glutamate dehydrogenase is potently inhibited by zinc and the major impact is on V(max) suggesting a V-type effect on catalysis or product release. Zinc inhibition decreases as glutamate concentrations decrease suggesting a role for subunit interactions. With the monocarboxylic amino acid norvaline, which gives no evidence of subunit interactions, zinc does not inhibit. Zinc significantly decreases the size of the pre-steady state burst in the reaction but does not affect NADPH binding in the enzyme-NADPH-glutamate complex that governs the steady state turnover, again suggesting that zinc disrupts subunit interactions required for catalytic competence. While differential scanning calorimetry suggests zinc binds and induces a slightly conformationally more rigid state of the protein, limited proteolysis indicates that regions in the vicinity of the antennae regions and the trimer-trimer interface become more flexible. The structures of glutamate dehydrogenase bound with zinc and europium show that zinc binds between the three dimers of subunits in the hexamer, a region shown to bind novel inhibitors that block catalytic turnover, which is consistent with the above findings. In contrast, europium binds to the base of the antenna region and appears to abrogate the inhibitory effect of zinc. Structures of various states of the enzyme have shown that both regions are heavily involved in the conformational changes associated with catalytic turnover. These results suggest that the V-type inhibition produced with glutamate as the substrate results from disruption of subunit interactions necessary for efficient catalysis rather than by a direct effect on the active site conformation.

Ligand-induced changes in the conformational stability and flexibility of glutamate dehydrogenase and their role in catalysis and regulation

Bovine glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) is allosterically regulated and requires substrate-induced subunit interactions for maximum catalytic activity. Steady-state and presteady-state kinetics indicate that the rate-limiting step depends on the nature of the substrate and are likely associated with conformational fluctuations necessary for optimal hydride transfer. Deuterated glutamate shows a steady-state isotope effect but no effect on the presteady-state burst rate, demonstrating that conformational effects are rate limiting for hydride transfer while product release is overall rate limiting for glutamate. Guanidine hydrochloride unfolding, heat inactivation, and differential scanning calorimetry demonstrate the effects of alternative substrates, glutamate and norvaline, on conformational stability. Glutamate has little effect on overall stability, whereas norvaline markedly stabilizes the protein. Limited proteolysis demonstrates that glutamate had a variety of effects on local flexibility, whereas norvaline significantly decreased conformational fluctuations that allow protease cleavage. Dynamic light scattering suggests that norvaline stabilizes all interfaces in the hexamer, whereas glutamate had little effect on trimer-trimer interactions. The substrate glutamate exhibits negative cooperativity and complex allosteric regulation but has only minor effects on global GDH stability, while promoting certain local conformational fluctuations. In contrast, the substrate norvaline does not show negative cooperativity or allow allosteric regulation. Instead, norvaline significantly stabilizes the enzyme and markedly slows or prevents local conformational fluctuations that are likely to be important for cooperative effects and to determine the overall rate of hydride transfer. This suggests that homotropic allosteric regulation by the enzymatic substrate involves changes in both global stability and local flexibility of the protein.

The structure and allosteric regulation of glutamate dehydrogenase

Glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) has been extensively studied for more than 50 years. Of particular interest is the fact that, while considered by most to be a 'housekeeping' enzyme, the animal form of GDH is heavily regulated by a wide array of allosteric effectors and exhibits extensive inter-subunit communication. While the chemical mechanism for GDH has remained unchanged through epochs of evolution, it was not clear how or why animals needed to evolve such a finely tuned form of this enzyme. As reviewed here, recent studies have begun to elucidate these issues. Allosteric regulation first appears in the Ciliates and may have arisen to accommodate evolutionary changes in organelle function. The occurrence of allosteric regulation appears to be coincident with the formation of an 'antenna' like feature rising off the tops of the subunits that may be necessary to facilitate regulation. In animals, this regulation further evolved as GDH became integrated into a number of other regulatory pathways. In particular, mutations in GDH that abrogate GTP inhibition result in dangerously high serum levels of insulin and ammonium. Therefore, allosteric regulation of GDH plays an important role in insulin homeostasis. Finally, several compounds have been identified that block GDH-mediated insulin secretion that may be to not only find use in treating these insulin disorders but to kill tumors that require glutamine metabolism for cellular energy.

High throughput screening reveals several new classes of glutamate dehydrogenase inhibitors

Glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) has been shown to play a regulatory role in insulin secretion by pancreatic beta-cells. The most compelling evidence of this comes from features of the hyperinsulism/hyperammonemia (HI/HA) syndrome where a dominant mutation causes the loss of inhibition by GTP, and from studies that link leucine (and its analogue BCH) activation of GDH to stimulation of insulin secretion. This suggests that GDH may represent a new and novel drug target to control a variety of insulin disorders. Recently we demonstrated that a subset of green tea polyphenols are potent inhibitors of glutamate dehydrogenase in vitro and can efficaciously block BCH stimulation of insulin secretion. In these current studies, we extend our search for GDH inhibitors using high throughput methods to pan through more than 27,000 compounds. A number of known and new inhibitors were identified with IC50s in the low micromolar range. These new inhibitors were found to act via apparently different mechanisms with some inhibiting the reaction in a positively cooperative manner, the inhibition by only some of the compounds was reversed by ADP, and one compound was found to stabilize the enzyme against thermal denaturation. Therefore, these new compounds not only are new leads in the treatment of hyperactive GDH but also are useful in dissecting the complex allosteric nature of the enzyme.

The structure of apo human glutamate dehydrogenase details subunit communication and allostery

The structure of human glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) has been determined in the absence of active site and regulatory ligands. Compared to the structures of bovine GDH that were complexed with coenzyme and substrate, the NAD binding domain is rotated away from the glutamate-binding domain. The electron density of this domain is more disordered the further it is from the pivot helix. Mass spectrometry results suggest that this is likely due to the apo form being more dynamic than the closed form. The antenna undergoes significant conformational changes as the catalytic cleft opens. The ascending helix in the antenna moves in a clockwise manner and the helix in the descending strand contracts in a manner akin to the relaxation of an extended spring. A number of spontaneous mutations in this antenna region cause the hyperinsulinism/hyperammonemia syndrome by decreasing GDH sensitivity to the inhibitor, GTP. Since these residues do not directly contact the bound GTP, the conformational changes in the antenna are apparently crucial to GTP inhibition. In the open conformation, the GTP binding site is distorted such that it can no longer bind GTP. In contrast, ADP binding benefits by the opening of the catalytic cleft since R463 on the pivot helix is pushed into contact distance with the beta-phosphate of ADP. These results support the previous proposal that purines regulate GDH activity by altering the dynamics of the NAD binding domain. Finally, a possible structural mechanism for negative cooperativity is presented.

Structures of bovine glutamate dehydrogenase complexes elucidate the mechanism of purine regulation

Glutamate dehydrogenase is found in all organisms and catalyses the oxidative deamination of l-glutamate to 2-oxoglutarate. However, only animal GDH utilizes both NAD(H) or NADP(H) with comparable efficacy and exhibits a complex pattern of allosteric inhibition by a wide variety of small molecules. The major allosteric inhibitors are GTP and NADH and the two main allosteric activators are ADP and NAD(+). The structures presented here have refined and modified the previous structural model of allosteric regulation inferred from the original boGDH.NADH.GLU.GTP complex. The boGDH.NAD(+).alpha-KG complex structure clearly demonstrates that the second coenzyme-binding site lies directly under the "pivot helix" of the NAD(+) binding domain. In this complex, phosphates are observed to occupy the inhibitory GTP site and may be responsible for the previously observed structural stabilization by polyanions. The boGDH.NADPH.GLU.GTP complex shows the location of the additional phosphate on the active site coenzyme molecule and the GTP molecule bound to the GTP inhibitory site. As expected, since NADPH does not bind well to the second coenzyme site, no evidence of a bound molecule is observed at the second coenzyme site under the pivot helix. Therefore, these results suggest that the inhibitory GTP site is as previously identified. However, ADP, NAD(+), and NADH all bind under the pivot helix, but a second GTP molecule does not. Kinetic analysis of a hyperinsulinism/hyperammonemia mutant strongly suggests that ATP can inhibit the reaction by binding to the GTP site. Finally, the fact that NADH, NAD(+), and ADP all bind to the same site requires a re-analysis of the previous models for NADH inhibition.

The structure of bovine glutamate dehydrogenase provides insights into the mechanism of allostery

BACKGROUND

Bovine glutamate dehydrogenase (boGDH) is a homohexameric, mitochondrial enzyme that reversibly catalyzes the oxidative deamination of L-glutamate to 2-oxoglutarate using either NADP(H) or NAD(H) with comparable efficacy. GDH represents a key enzymatic link between catabolic and biosynthetic pathways, and is therefore ubiquitous in both higher and lower organisms. Only mammalian GDH exhibits strong negative cooperativity with respect to the coenzyme, however, and is regulated by a large number of allosteric effectors.

RESULTS

The atomic structure of boGDH in complex with NADH, glutamate, and the allosteric inhibitor GTP has been determined to 2.8 A resolution. The major difference between the bacterial and bovine GDH structures is the presence of an additional 'antenna' in boGDH that protrudes from each trimer, twisting counterclockwise along the threefold axis. NADH and glutamate are clearly observed in the active site, but the contacts differ slightly from those observed in Clostridium symbiosum GDH. A second, inhibitory NADH molecule lies buried in the core of the hexamer. Finally, two GTP molecules bind near the hinge region connecting the NAD(+)- and glutamate-binding domains.

CONCLUSIONS

We propose that the antenna serves as an intersubunit communication conduit during negative cooperativity and allosteric regulation. GTP and NADH inhibit GDH by keeping the catalytic cleft in a closed conformation. In contrast, ADP probably binds to the back of the NAD(+)-binding domain and activates the enzyme by keeping the catalytic cleft open. Extensive contacts between antennae within the crystal lattice may represent hexamer interactions in solution and, perhaps, with other enzymes within the mitochondrial matrix.

Kinetic mechanism of Halobacterium halobium NAD+-glutamate dehydrogenase

The kinetic mechanism of Halobacterium halobium NAD+-glutamate dehydrogenase (EC 1.4.1.3) has been investigated at pH 9.0, 3 M NaCl and 40 degrees C in both directions, by initial rate and inhibition studies. The results of the initial rate studies indicate that the mechanism is sequential with respect to substrate addition. The inhibition patterns obtained with halophilic NAD+-glutamate dehydrogenase are not consistent with a simple ordered mechanism without modification. They can, however, be reconciled with this type of mechanism by postulating an appropriate abortive complex.

A transfer nuclear Overhauser effect study of coenzyme binding to distinct sites in binary and ternary complexes in glutamate dehydrogenase

The oxidized coenzyme NAD binds to two sites per subunit of bovine liver glutamate dehydrogenase with equal affinity in the absence of dicarboxylic acid coligands. In the presence of glutarate or 2-oxoglutarate, the affinity to one site is unchanged, but the affinity to the other (presumed to be the active site) is considerably increased and now requires two dissociation constants to describe its saturation. A combination of transfer nuclear Overhauser effects (TRNOE) together with an examination of the slopes of TRNOE time dependence indicates that while NAD is bound in a syn conformation at both binding sites, NADP (which binds only to the active site) is bound in a syn-anti mixture. The existence of N6 to N3' and N6 and N2' and N1' to N3' NOE's with NAD suggests that the two coenzyme binding sites are located near enough to allow intermolecular NOE's. In the presence of 2-oxoglutarate where only binding to the active site is effectively observed, the conformation of either coenzyme is syn. Modeling studies using the distance estimates from the TRNOE results suggest that the nicotinamide ribose approximates a 3'-endo conformation. The absence of evidence for intermolecular NOE's under these conditions indicates that while the active and regulatory NAD sites per subunit are in close proximity, the six active sites per hexamer are located greater than 5 A apart.

Absence of direct coenzyme transfer in an A-B dehydrogenase system

Direct transfer of NADPH between two NADP-dependent dehydrogenases, isocitrate dehydrogenase and glutamate dehydrogenase, has been investigated. These enzymes have opposite stereospecificity for hydrogen transfer to the coenzyme. In contrast with the general direct-transfer mechanism postulated for NAD-dependent dehydrogenases [Srivastava & Bernhard (1986) Science 234, 1081-1086], no evidence for direct transfer in either direction was found for these NADP-dependent dehydrogenases.

Interaction of Zn2+ and Eu3+ with bovine liver glutamate dehydrogenase

Bovine liver glutamate dehydrogenase is potently inhibited by Zn2+ ions. At pH 7.0 a kinetic dissociation constant for Zn2+ of 18 microM is obtained. The fluorescent lanthanide Eu3+ competes for the Zn2+-binding site and relieves the Zn2+-induced inhibition, but does not cause inhibition. Studies on the effects of Zn2+ or Eu3+ on the tertiary and quaternary structure of the enzyme by the use of protein fluorescence, heat-stability and re-activation after guanidinium chloride denaturation indicate that, whereas Zn2+ affects both tertiary and quaternary structure, Eu3+ does not affect either, consistent with its lack of effect on enzymic properties. Eu3+ fluorescence had a strong excitation peak at 395 nm with emission at 456 nm. In the presence of glutamate dehydrogenase the fluorescence emission is shifted to 501 nm. Eu3+, with high-affinity binding site and distinctive fluorescence properties after binding, would appear to be an ideal fluorophore for use in conformational studies or resonance-energy-transfer studies.

Investigation of the effects of crosslinking glutamate dehydrogenase with dimethyl pimelimidate

Chemical crosslinking with dimethyl pimelimidate has been used to examine the quaternary structure and conformational mobility of bovine liver glutamate dehydrogenase. Crosslinking patterns are shown to be consistent with either a stacked or staggered dimer of trimers structure of the hexamer. Crosslinking in the absence of coligands results in a small loss of activity but an almost complete loss of GTP inhibitory effects. Protection experiments show that the active site can be protected by a variety of ligand combinations, and that the loss of GTP inhibition is protected by several complexes containing either NADH or NADPH, indicating that the second coenzyme site per subunit (which preferentially binds NADH) is not involved in the protection process. A significant loss of ADP activation occurs during crosslinking which is not protected against by any combination of protecting ligands tried, including those which involve second coenzyme site binding, showing that the ADP site is functionally distinct from the GTP site and from the second coenzyme binding site. Crosslinking in the presence of protecting ligands gives similar gel patterns to those obtained in the absence of protection. Affinity chromatography experiments show that the crosslinked enzyme still binds GTP despite the loss of GTP inhibition, and hysteresis experiments show that the second coenzyme site is left functional if protected with either coenzyme. A model is presented where crosslinking affects the conformational linkage between various ligand binding sites involved in GTP inhibition rather than the sites themselves.