Effect of coenzyme modification on the structural and catalytic properties of wild-type transketolase and of the variant E418A from Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Transketolase from baker's yeast is a thiamin diphosphate-dependent enzyme in sugar metabolism that reconstitutes with various analogues of the coenzyme. The methylated analogues (4'-methylamino-thiamin diphosphate and N1'-methylated thiamin diphosphate) of the native cofactor were used to investigate the function of the aminopyrimidine moiety of the coenzyme in transketolase catalysis. For the wild-type transketolase complex with the 4'-methylamino analogue, no electron density was found for the methyl group in the X-ray structure, whereas in the complex with the N1'-methylated coenzyme the entire aminopyrimidine ring was disordered. This indicates a high flexibility of the respective parts of the enzyme-bound thiamin diphosphate analogues. In the E418A variant of transketolase reconstituted with N1'-methylated thiamin diphosphate, the electron density of the analogue was well defined and showed the typical V-conformation found in the wild-type holoenzyme [Lindqvist Y, Schneider G, Ermler U, Sundstrom M (1992) EMBO J11, 2373-2379]. The near-UV CD spectrum of the variant E418A reconstituted with N1'-methylated thiamin diphosphate was identical to that of the wild-type holoenzyme, while the CD spectrum of the variant combined with the unmodified cofactor did not overlap with that of the native protein. The activation of the analogues was measured by the H/D-exchange at C2. Methylation at the N1' position of the cofactor activated the enzyme-bound cofactor analogue (as shown by a fast H/D-exchange rate constant). The absorbance changes in the course of substrate turnover of the different complexes investigated (transient kinetics) revealed the stability of the alpha-carbanion/enamine as the key intermediate in cofactor action to be dependent on the functionality of the 4-aminopyrimidine moiety of thiamin diphosphate.

Epstein-Barr virus encoded nuclear protein EBNA-3 binds a novel human uridine kinase/uracil phosphoribosyltransferase.

BACKGROUND: Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infects resting B-lymphocytes and transforms them into immortal proliferating lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) in vitro. The transformed immunoblasts may grow up as immunoblastic lymphomas in immuno-suppressed hosts. RESULTS: In order to identify cellular protein targets that may be involved in Epstein-Barr virus mediated B-cell transformation, human LCL cDNA library was screened with one of the transformation associated nuclear antigens, EBNA-3 (also called EBNA-3A), using the yeast two-hybrid system. A clone encoding a fragment of a novel human protein was isolated (clone 538). The interaction was confirmed using in vitro binding assays. A full-length cDNA clone (F538) was isolated. Sequence alignment with known proteins and 3D structure predictions suggest that F538 is a novel human uridine kinase/uracil phosphoribosyltransferase. The GFP-F538 fluorescent fusion protein showed a preferentially cytoplasmic distribution but translocated to the nucleus upon co-expression of EBNA-3. A naturally occurring splice variant of F538, that lacks the C-terminal uracil phosphoribosyltransferase part but maintain uridine kinase domain, did not translocate to the nucleus in the presence of EBNA3. Antibody that was raised against the bacterially produced GST-538 protein showed cytoplasmic staining in EBV negative Burkitt lymphomas but gave a predominantly nuclear staining in EBV positive LCL-s and stable transfected cells expressing EBNA-3. CONCLUSION: We suggest that EBNA-3 by direct protein-protein interaction induces the nuclear accumulation of a novel enzyme, that is part of the ribonucleotide salvage pathway. Increased intranuclear levels of UK/UPRT may contribute to the metabolic build-up that is needed for blast transformation and rapid proliferation.