Pyruvate decarboxylase (PDC) was purified from pea seeds. The catalytically active holoenzyme is an oligomer of two types of subunits with molecular masses of about 65 kDa and 68 kDa, respectively. The active enzyme is a mixture of tetramers, octamers and even higher oligomers. These differences in the quaternary structure compared with PDC from yeast (tetramer) do not result in a different kinetic behaviour. The activity of pea PDC as well as that of yeast PDC is regulated by its substrate pyruvate resulting in a sigmoid shape of the v/S-plot. At the optimum pH of 6.0 a S0.5-value of 1 mM pyruvate is found that increases with rising pH and increasing concentrations of phosphate. The substrate analogue activator pyruvamide activates the enzyme resulting in a hyperbolic v/S-plot. The stability of PDC from pea seeds in solution is about one order of magnitude higher than that of yeast PDC. Despite the described similarities of the two enzymes no significant cross reactivity of the anti-pea PDC antibody with the enzyme from yeast occurs.
To study the molecular structure and function of pyruvate decarboxylase (PDC) from plants the protein was isolated from pea seeds and partially characterised. The active enzyme which occurs in the form of higher oligomers consists of two different subunits appearing in SDSiPAGE and mass spectroscopy experiments. For further experiments, like X-ray crystallography, it was necessary to elucidate the protein sequence.Partial cDNA clones encoding pyruvate decarboxylase from seeds of Pisum sativum cv. Miko have been obtained by means of polymerase chain reaction techniques. The first sequences were found using degenerate oligonucleotide primers designated according to conserved amino acid sequences of known pyruvate decarboxylases. The missing parts of one cDNA were amplified applying the 3'-and 5'-rapid amplification of cDNA ends systems. The amino acid sequence deduced from the entire cDNA sequence displays strong similarity to pyruvate decarboxylases from other organisms, especially from plants. A molecular mass of 64 kDa was calculated for this protein correlating with estimations for the smaller subunit of the oligomeric enzyme. The PCR experiments led to at least three different clones representing the middle part of the PDC cDNA indicating the existence of three isozymes. Two of these isoforms could be confirmed on the protein level by sequencing tryptic peptides. Only anaerobically treated roots showed a positive signal for PDC mRNA in Northern analysis although the cDNA from imbibed seeds was successfully used for PCR.
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