Re-assessment of ammonium-ion affinities of NADP-specific glutamate dehydrogenases. Activation of the Neurospora crassa enzyme by ammonium and rubidium ions.

The NADP-specific glutamate dehydrogenase of Neurospora crassa shows complex interactions with NH4+ ions, characterized by biphasic downwardly convex double-reciprocal plots. These kinetics are explained by the action of NH4+ both as a substrate and, acting at a separate cation-binding site, as an activator. Rb+ ions, and to a smaller extent other univalent cations, also activate by acting as analogues of NH4+. Previous failure to recognize this effect, which probably also occurs in homologous enzymes from some other species, has led to significant overestimates in published reports of the Km for NH4+ of some NADP-specific glutamate dehydrogenases.