Use of chromium-adenosine triphosphate and lyxose to elucidate the kinetic mechanism and coordination state of the nucleotide substrate for yeast hexokinase.

When initial velocities are measured with yeast hexokinase at pH 7, 17 degrees, the inert coordination complex chromium-ATP is competitive vs. MgATP and noncompetitive with glucose, with a dissociation constant of 4-6 muM in either the presence or absence of glucose. These patterns confirm a random kinetic mechanism for this enzyme. With CrATP present, however, the reaction slows down over the first several minutes to a much slower rate, suggesting tighter binding of CrATP with time. When CrATP, MgATP, and D-lyxose are preincubated with the enzyme for 10 min and the reaction started by addition of excess glucose, the dissociation constand of CrATP in now 0.13 muM and the reaction is linear with time. When glucose, CrATP, and enzyme are incubated together and then placed on a Sephadex column, 1 mol each of CrATP and glucose per active center is tightly bound to the enzyme, thus providing a simple and precise method of determining the concentration of active sites. This tight complex, after denaturation with acid, releases 25% free glucose and 75% of a chromium complex containing both ADP and sugar-6-P. CrADP-glucose-6-P is also slowly released from the enzyme during incubation, so that CrATP is actually a very slow substrate. Binding of CrATP with the formation of CrADP-sugar-6-P complexes is also induced by mannose, fructose, glucosamine, 2,5-anhydro-D-glucitol, 2,5-anhydro-D-mannose, and 2,5-anhydro-D-mannitol, while glucose-6-P, 6-deoxyglucose, and lyxose also induce tight binding of CrATP. With excess enzyme, only 25% of CrATP is bound, and the rest does not inhibit the hexokinase reaction. Since bidentate Cr(NH3)4ATP and monodentate CrADP also display inhibition which is tighter with time, but since bidentate CrADP is a poor inhibitor, the actural substrates in the hexokinase reaction appear to be beta, gamma-bidentate MgATP and beta-monodentate MgADP. Tighter inhibition by Cr-8-BrATP than by CrATP suggests that ATP ASSUMES THE SYN CONFORMATION ON THE ENZYME. The substrate inhibition by MgATP induced by the presence of lyxose is shown to be competitive vs. glucose and partial, and, together with other data available, to suggest a kinetic mechanism that is random, but where (1) the rate constant for release of glucose from E-glucose is equal to Vmax, and that for release of glucose from central complexes is less than Vmas; (2) the majority of the reaction flux when both substrates are present at Km levels goes through the path with glucose adding before MgATP, but where at physiological levels the flux through the two paths is more equal. Contd.