Vanadate catalyzes photocleavage of adenylate kinase at proline-17 in the phosphate-binding loop.

Irradiation of adenylate kinase (AK) from chicken muscle with 300-400-nm light in the presence of 0.25 mM vanadate ion first inactivated the enzyme and then cleaved the polypeptide chain near the NH2 terminus. The addition of the multisubstrate analogue, P1,P5-bis(5'-adenosyl) pentaphosphate, prevented both effects. ATP, but not AMP, blocked both inactivation and cleavage in a saturable manner, suggesting that both effects were due to modification at the ATP-binding site. The polypeptide products of the photocleavage were isolated by HPLC and characterized by amino acid composition, peptide sequencing, and mass spectral analyses. The predominant (greater than 90%) small peptide fragment contained the first 16 amino acids from the amino terminus of the enzyme. The amino terminus of this peptide contained an acetylated serine, and the "carboxy" terminus was modified by a cyclized gamma-aminobutyric acid which originated from photooxidation and decarboxylation of proline-17 by vanadate. Edman sequencing indicated that the majority of the large peptide fragment (Mr approximately 19,500) was amino-terminal blocked, but a small portion was sequenceable starting at either glycine-18 (7%) or serine-19 (2%). These studies indicate that in the ATP-AK complex proline-17 is close to the phosphate chain of ATP but not AMP, consistent with the latest evaluation of nucleotide-binding sites on mitochondrial matrix AK by X-ray crystallography [Diederichs, K., & Schulz, G.E. (1991) J. Mol. Biol. 217, 541-549]. Furthermore, this is the first report that an amino acid other than serine can be involved in vanadate-promoted photocleavage reactions.