The investigation of substrate-induced changes in subunit interactions in glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenases by measurement of the kinetics and thermodynamics of subunit exchange.

An investigation was made of changes in subunit interactions in glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase on binding NAD+, NADH and other substrates by using the previously developed method of measurement of rates and extent of subunit exchange between the rabbit enzyme (R4), yeast enzyme (Y4) and rabbit-yeast hybrid (R2Y2) [Osborne & Hollaway (1974) Biochem. J. 143, 651-662]. The free energy of activation for the conversion of tetramer into dimer for the rabbit enzyme (R4 leads to 2R2) is increased by at least 12kJ/mol in the presence of NAD+. This increase is interpreted in terms of an NAD+-induced 'tightening' of the tetrameric structure probably involving increased interaction at the subunit interfaces across the QR plane of the molecule [see Buehner et al. (1974) J. Mol. Biol. 82, 563-585]. This tightening of the structure only occurs on binding the third NAD+ molecule to a given enzyme molecule. Conversely, binding of NADH causes a decrease in the free energy of activation for the R4 leads to 2R2 and Y4 leads to 2Y2 conversions by at least 10kJ/mol. This is interpreted as a NADH-induced 'loosening' of the structures arising from decreased interactions across the subunit interfaces involving the QR dissociation plane. In the presence of NADH the increase in the rate of subunit exchange is such that it is not possible to separate the hybrid from the other species if electrophoresis is carried out with NADH in the separation media. In the presence of a mixture of NADH and NAD+ the effect of NAD+ on subunit exchange is dominant. The results are discussed in terms of the known co-operativty between binding sites in glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenases.