Demonstration of a lag period in the time-course of the reaction catalyzed by pyruvate dehydrogenase complex.

At low thiamine pyrophosphate concentrations the time-course of the reaction catalyzed by mammalian pyruvate dehydrogenase complex shows a lag period of some minutes when the reaction is started by either enzyme, pyruvate or thiamine pyrophosphate. However, started by CoASH or NAD+, the lag period disappears. An increase in enzyme concentration to 25 mU/ml causes a concomitant shortening of the duration of the lag period (tau), while above this value tau is independent of the enzyme concentration. An increase in thiamine pyrophosphate concentration decreases the value of tau and the lag period vanishes at infinite thiamine pyrophosphate concentration. It is suggested that both isomerization and aggregation-dissociation reactions may play an improtant role in the development of the lag period of pyruvate dehydrogenase complex.