Threonine inhibition of the aspartokinase--homoserine dehydrogenase I of Escherichia coli. Threonine binding studies.

Both activities of the aspartokinase--homoserine I (AK-HSD) of Escherichia coli are inhibited by threonine. Careful threonine binding studies have now been done which have allowed us to distinguish the various effects of threonine on the enzyme. The ultrafiltration technique of H. Paulus ((1969) Anal. Biochem. 32, 101) for measuring ligand binding was shown to be comparable with equilibrium dialysis techniques. Reduction in error by utilization of this procedure enabled us to obtain evidence for two different sets of threonine sites by direct binding studies. The binding data were mathematically consistent with two independent classes of threonine sites, each of which contained four sites per tetramer and had a Hill coefficient of about 2.3--2.5. KD for the second set of sites was five- to tenfold greater than the high affinity sites, depending upon conditions. The data now suggest that the sequential model for site--site interactions adequately describes the cooperativity of threonine binding to the high affinity set of sites.