Regulation of adenosine triphosphate sulfurylase in cultured tobacco cells. Effects of sulfur and nitrogen sources on the formation and decay of the enzyme.

The ATP sulfurylase of cultured tobacco cells is repressed during growth on readily assimiliated sulfur sources, such as sulfate, L-cysteine, or L-methionine, but it is derepressed during growth on slowly assimiliated sulfur sources, such as L-djenkolate or glutathione, or during sulfur starvation. The enzyme is not induced by sulfate. The enzyme level in the cells begins to rise 12 to 24 h after the derepression conditions are initiated and continues to rise for 3 to 4 days, up to as much as 25 times above the initial specific activity. Addition of a repressing sulfur source to derepressed cells causes the enzyme to decay. Derepression by sulfur limitation does not occur in cells starved for nitrogen, a circumstance in which turnover synthesis of protein is known to continue. Upon addition of a nitrogen source to such cells, the development of the enzyme begins within 12 h, along with the resumption of growth and net protein synthesis. Derepression occurs in cells growing on the slowly assimilated nitrogen in urea, reaching specific activities very similar to those which develop in cells grown on nitrate, in spite of the lower protein accumulation rate on urea. Thus the ATP sulfurylase of tobacco cells appears to be regulated by both a negative feedback mechanism in which an end product of the sulfate assimilation pathway is the effector, and by a positive mechanism which serves to couple the regulation of the sulfate assimilation pathway to the cells' potential for nitrogen assimilation, i.e. net protein synthesis. The sulfur compounds which affect the development of ATP sulfurylase in vivo have no effect on the enzyme activity in vitro. Furthermore, extracts with high activity contain no activator and extracts with low activity contain no inhibitor of ATP sulfurylase. Cycloheximide, at a concentration which strongly inhibits amino acid incorporation into protein, inhibits derepression. ATP sulfurylase does not decay in cells inhibited by cycloheximide. Therefore, the changes in ATP sulfurylase of tobacco cells appear to involve changes in the rate of formation or degradation of the enzyme.