Glycolytic enzyme interactions with yeast and skeletal muscle F-actin.

Interaction of glycolytic enzymes with F-actin is suggested to be a mechanism for compartmentation of the glycolytic pathway. Earlier work demonstrates that muscle F-actin strongly binds glycolytic enzymes, allowing for the general conclusion that "actin binds enzymes", which may be a generalized phenomenon. By taking actin from a lower form, such as yeast, which is more deviant from muscle actin than other higher animal forms, the generality of glycolytic enzyme interactions with actin and the cytoskeleton can be tested and compared with higher eukaryotes, e.g., rabbit muscle. Cosedimentation of rabbit skeletal muscle and yeast F-actin with muscle fructose-1,6-bisphosphate aldolase (aldolase) and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) followed by Scatchard analysis revealed a biphasic binding, indicating high- and low-affinity domains. Muscle aldolase and GAPDH showed low-affinity for binding yeast F-actin, presumably because of fewer acidic residues at the N-terminus of yeast actin; this difference in affinity is also seen in Brownian dynamics computer simulations. Yeast GAPDH and aldolase showed low-affinity binding to yeast actin, which suggests that actin-glycolytic enzyme interactions may also occur in yeast although with lower affinity than in higher eukaryotes. The cosedimentation results were supported by viscometry results that revealed significant cross-linking at lower concentrations of rabbit muscle enzymes than yeast enzymes. Brownian dynamics simulations of yeast and muscle aldolase and GAPDH with yeast and muscle actin compared the relative association free energy. Yeast aldolase did not specifically bind to either yeast or muscle actin. Yeast GAPDH did bind to yeast actin although with a much lower affinity than when binding muscle actin. The binding of yeast enzymes to yeast actin was much less site specific and showed much lower affinities than in the case with muscle enzymes and muscle actin.