The equilibrium position of the reaction of bovine liver glutamate dehydrogenase with pyridoxal5'-phosphate. A demonstration that covalent modification with this reagent completely abolishes catalytic activity.

1. The activity of bovine liver glutamate dehydrogenase incubated with pyridoxal 5'-phosphate declined to a steady value reached within 30--60 min. The residual activity depended on the concentration of modifier up to about 5 mM. Above this concentration, however, no further inactivation was produced. The minimum activity obtainable in such incubations was 6--7% of the initial value. 2. Km values of the modified enzyme were unaltered, whereas Vmax. was decreased. 3. Activity was fully regained on dialysis against 0.1 M-potassium phosphate buffer. 4. Reduction with borohydride rendered the inactivation permanent but did not alter its extent. 5. Enzyme permanently inactivated in this way to the extent of 90% and dialysed was re-treated with pyridoxal 5'-phosphate. In this second cycle activity declined from 10 to 1% of the original activity. 6. This strongly suggests that the failure to achieve complete inactivation in a single cycle reflects a reversible equilibrium between inactive Schiff base, i.e. covalently modified enzyme, and a non-covalent complex. 7. The re-inactivation reaction occurring on dilution was demonstrated directly and a first-order rate constant obtained (0.048 min-1). This, in conjunction with an estimate of the forward rate constant for Schiff-base formation, obtained by approximate pseudo-first-order analysis of inactivation at varied modifier concentrations, gives a predicted minimum activity very close to that actually obtained in a single cycle of treatment. 8. The dissociation constant of the non-covalent complex is given by two methods as 0.90 and 1.59mM. 9. The results indicate that covalent modification with pyridoxal 5'-phosphate completely abolishes the activity of glutamate dehydrogenase.