Dissociation, unfolding and refolding trials of pig kidney 3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (dopa) decarboxylase.

The effect of guanidinium chloride (GuCl) on enzyme activity, hydrodynamic volume, circular dichroism, and fluorescence of 3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (Dopa) decarboxylase from pig kidney (pkDDC) was studied under equilibrium conditions. Unfolding proceeds in at least three stages. The first transition, occurring between 0 and 1 M GuCl, gives rise to a dimeric inactive species which has lost pyridoxal 5'-phosphate (PLP), and has a high tendency to aggregate, but retains almost all of the native spectroscopic characteristics. The second equilibrium transition, between 1 and 2.2 M GuCl, involves dimer dissociation, with some loss of tertiary and secondary structure. Additionally, gross conformational changes at or near the PLP microenvironment were detected by fluorescence of NaBH4-reduced enzyme. The third step, presumably representing complete unfolding of pkDDC, appears to be complete at 4.5 M GuCl, as indicated by the lack of further substantial changes in any of the signals being studied. Attempts at refolding resulted in the findings that: (1) partial reactivation is observed only starting from enzyme denatured at concentrations below 1.5 M GuCl, and (2) starting from completely denatured protein, the refolding process is apparently reversible down to concentrations of approx. 2 M GuCl. Taken together, this would seem to indicate that the monomer-dimer transition is impaired under the experimental conditions tested. A plausible model is presented for the unfolding/refolding of pkDDC.