Effect of apolipoprotein C-II on the temperature dependence of lipoprotein lipase-catalyzed hydrolysis of phosphatidylcholines. A hydrophobic model for the mechanism.

The lipoprotein lipase-catalyzed hydrolysis of diacylphosphatidylcholines (PC) in mixed micelles of Triton X-100/PC was studied as a function of temperature in the presence and absence of apolipoprotein C-II (apo-C-II), the activator protein for lipoprotein lipase. Dilauroyl-, dimyristoyl-, dipalmitoyl-, and distearoyl-phosphatidylcholine (di-C12-PC, di-C14-PC, di-C16-PC, and di-C18-PC, respectively) were used as substrates. No systematic relationship between substrate fatty acyl chain length and either the rates of the activation energies for hydrolysis in the presence or absence of apo-C-II was observed. However, there was a linear relationship between fatty acyl chain length and both the logarithm of the activation factor (the ratio of enzyme activity with apo-C-II to that without apo-C-II) and the difference in activation energy in the presence and absence of apo-C-II. These relationships were not the result of an alteration in the physical form of the substrate, since a mixture of di-C14-PC and di-C16-PC gave activation factors for each PC which were the same as those obtained for each individual lipid. From the temperature dependence of the activation factor, thermodynamic functions of the apo-C-II-induced change in the reaction pathway were calculated. The free energy of activation decreased linearly with increasing chain length as the result of a linear increase in activation entropy which more than offset the unfavorable increase in activation enthalpy. We propose that the apo-C-II-mediated increase in the rate of the lipoprotein lipase-catalyzed hydrolysis of phosphatidylcholine is associated with transfer of a fatty acyl chain of the substrate or product to a more hydrophobic environment within the transition state complex.