Manganese (II) and substrate interaction with unadenylylated glutamine synthetase (Escherichia coli w). II. Electron paramagnetic resonance and nuclear magnetic resonance studies of enzyme-bound manganese(II) with substrates and a potential transition-state analogue, methionine sulfoximine.

The enhancement of the longitudinal proton relaxation rate of solvent water protons which occurs when Mn(II) is bound to the "tight" metal ion site of unadenylylated glutamine synthetase (GS) was used to determine the binding constant of L-methionine (SR)-sulfoximine to GS-Mn(II) complexes. The binary enhancement for GS-Mn(II) is 22 at 24 MHz, 25 degrees C. The enhancement is lowered in the presence of the sulfoximine and the computed dissociation constant is 30 muM with epsilont, the enhancement for the ternary complex, equal to 3.0. Titration curves for the sulfoximine were also obtained in the presence of Mg-ADP, Mg-ADP plus Pi, and Mg-ATP. The dissociation constants were 9, 5, and 0.8 muM, respectively. The progressive tightening of the dissociation constants is symptomatic of conformational changes at the active site as the total subsite occupied by ATP is filled. The number of rapidly exchanging water molecules drops from 2 to approximately 0.1 when saturating concentrations of L-methionine (SR)-sulfoximine and nucleotide are present. The kinetically determined KI value of approximately 4 muM for the sulfoximine is about three orders of magnitude tighter than thee Km' value of approximately 3 mM for L-glutamate. The previously mentioned dissociation constants obtained by enhancement titrations are also orders of magnitude tighter than Km'. These data suggest that L-methionine (SR)-sulfoximine is a "transition-state" analogue for the glutamine synthetase reaction. ...