Channel-shuttle mechanism for the regulation of phenylalanine and tyrosine synthesis at a metabolic branch point in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

A bifunctional protein complex was partially purified from Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Catalytic activities for chorismate mutase and prephenate dehydratase coeluted from gel filtration and DEAE-cellulose chromatography columns. The protein complex had a molecular weight of approximately 134,000, as determined by gel filtration. In crude extracts or in partially purified preparations about one-half of the chorismate utilized by the complex is converted to phenylpyruvate, and the other half accumulates as prephenate. The chorismate mutase activity is strongly product-inhibited by prephenate, competitively with chorismate. Accordingly, the first reaction of the complex can be sufficiently retarded by prephenate so that all of the reaction product is phenylpyruvate. Chorismate mutase activity is also competitively inhibited by phenylalanine. Although phenylalanine is effective at low concentrations, maximal inhibition is only 50 to 60%. Inhibition of chorismate mutase by phenylalanine was completely lost after gel filtration. The prephenate dehydratase activity of the protein complex is nearly completely inhibited by 0.1 mm phenylalanine in either crude extracts or partially purified preparations. A second species of prephenate dehydratase was separated from the prephenate dehydratase-chorismate mutase aggregate by gel filtration or anion exchange chromatography. The second prephenate dehydratase had an estimated molecular weight of 76,000, a high affinity for prephenate, and was insensitive to feedback inhibition by phenylalanine. The physiological role of the latter enzyme is uncertain. The other regulatory enzymes of tyrosine and phenylalanine biosynthesis, prephenate mutase aggregate by gel filtration or anion exchange chromatography. The other regulatory enzymes of tyrosine and phenylalanine biosynthesis, prephenate dehydrogenase (molecular weight of 120,000) and 3-deoxy-d-arabino-heptulosonate-7-phosphate synthetase (molecular weight of 52,000), elute from Sephadex G-100 columns as fractions which are distinct from both the chorismate mutase-prephenate dehydratase complex and from the low-molecular-weight species of prephenate dehydratase. A shuttle mechanism governing the metabolic fate of prephenate (to phenylalanine or to tyrosine) is proposed in the context of a model which also accommodates several previously puzzling findings: (i) the dominating role of tyrosine in the control of 3-deoxy-d-arabino-heptulosonate-7-phosphate synthetase and (ii) the lack of feedback control of prephenate dehydrogenase by tyrosine.