Non reductive activation of spinach chloroplastic fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase: evidence for structural modification of the enzyme.

Preincubation of chloroplastic fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase (FBPase) in the presence of Ca2+/fructose-1,6-bisphosphate (FBS) gives rise to an active enzyme. This non-reductive activation at pH 8 occurs in the same range of time (min) as the well known reductive activation by thioredoxins and this process is reversible. A conformational change of the enzyme occurs upon the activation by Ca2+/FBP. Indeed, the circular dichroism and the fluorescence spectra of the inactive and active enzymes are different. The titration of the sulfhydryl groups of both enzymes indicates that one -SH group per monomer is unmasked upon activation, and the isoelectrofocusing pattern shows that the pI of inactive FBPase is shifted from 4.26 to 4.56 upon this non-reductive process.