Effects of conformational selectivity and of overlapping kinetically influential ionizations on the characteristics of pH-dependent enzyme kinetics. Implications of free-enzyme pKa variability in reactions of papain for its catalytic mechanism.

The effects of selection by a small molecule, when binding to a protein, of a particular conformation from an equilibrium stereopopulation on the characteristics of the pH-dependence of reaction with a reactivity probe or substrate were determined by analysis of an appropriate kinetic model. For reaction in one protonic state containing an equilibrium mixture of two conformational isomers, the pH-second-order rate constant (k) profile is of conventional sigmoidal form. The apparent pKa value is a composite of the pKa values of the two conformational states. The value of pKapp. for a given enzyme under given experimental conditions will always be the same (provided that the site-specificity assumed in the model is maintained) irrespective of whether only one conformation reacts or both react, with the same or with different rate constants. The experimentally determined pH-independent rate constant (kapp.) is an average of the reactivities of the two conformational states weighted in favour of the predominant form. The presence of an additional but unreactive conformational state also affects the value of kapp. The possibility that overlapping acid dissociations that affect the reactivity of the enzyme might provide pH-k profiles often indistinguishable in practice from simple sigmoidal dissociation curves and subject to variability in apparent pKa values was evaluated by a simulation study. If two reactive protonic states of the enzyme respond differently to changes in the structure of the substrate or site-specific reactivity probe, differences in apparent pKa values of up to approx. 1 unit can be exhibited without deviation from sigmoidal behaviour being reliably observed. Differences in apparent pKa values observed in some site-specific reactions of papain and their possible consequences for its catalytic mechanism are discussed.