An essential arginine residue at the substrate-binding site of p-hydroxybenzoate hydroxylase.

p-Hydroxybenzoate hydroxylase (EC 1.14.13.2) was rapidly inactivated by treatment with phenylglyoxal, by a process obeying pseudo-first order kinetics. The reaction with the reagent was also examined by amino acid analyses, radioactivity measurements, and spectrophotometric analyses. Results of these analyses were consistent with each other, which shows that the inactivation was due to modification of argiine residue(s). Addition of saturating amounts of p-hydroxybenzoate (or benzoate) during the treatment resulted in marked protection of the enzyme from the inactivation as well as a significant decrease in modification of arginine residues, while phenol showed no effect. Modification in the absence of p-hydroxybenzoate caused a spectral change in the flavin moiety of the enzyme similar to that due to the enzyme.substrate complex formation, and losses in both the overall activity and the substrate-binding ability accompanied the spectral change. On the other hand, such spectral change was not observed and the substrate-binding ability was retained even after the overall activity had decreased to a great extent when p-hydroxybenzoate as added during the modification treatment. These results suggest that phenylglyoxal (an analogue of the substrate) was incorporatd into the substrate-binding site and that an arginine residue is involved in the site, having an interaction with the carboxylate anion of the substrate.