An analysis of the substrate-induced rate effect in the phosphoglucomutase system.

The rate constant for the catalytic transfer of the active-site PO3 group from rabbit muscle phosphoglucomutase to the hydroxyl group of a water molecule is about 3 x 10(-8) s-1 under optimal reaction conditions, but in the absence of the normal substrate, viz., at pH 7.5 and 30 degrees C, in the presence of saturating Mg2+; the corresponding constant for transfer to the 6-hydroxyl group of glucose 1-phosphate under analogous conditions, about 1000 s-1, is larger than this by some 3 x 10(10)-fold. Since no single factor appears to be capable of providing a rationale for a majority of this "substrate-induced rate effect" (Ray, jr., W.J., and Long, J.W. (1976), Biochemistry, the preceding paper in this issue), the change in the PO3-transfer rate produced by binding various parts of the phosphoglucosyl moiety to the enzyme, both separately and concurrently, was investigated. The rate of PO3 transfer to water is increased by up to 1000-fold by binding entities that provide the active site with a second PO3 group, e.g., ethyl phosphate or inorganic phosphite. Using an alcoholic acceptor further increases transfer efficiency (in the presence of bound phosphite): increase with methanol, about 2000-fold on a molar basis. The reactivities of ten other primary aliphatic alcohols vary by nearly 600-fold as the acidity of the PO3 acceptor is varied over a 4000-fold range. Although no straightforward relationship is observed between the efficiency of an alcohol as an acceptor and its acidity - presumably because of complications due to steric effects, for example - an increased transfer rate of 100-fold, relative to the water reaction, is estimated for a simple primary alcohol with a pKa similar to that expected for the 6-hydroxyl group of glucose 1-phosphate, when the alcohol is present at a concentration of 1 M. Joining an alcoholic acceptor and a PO3 group via five apparently inert bridging units changes PO3 transfer to an intramolecular process; in the case of 1,4-butanediol monophosphate the rate of transfer also increases by 240-fold, relative to the analogous reaction in the presence of 1 M propanol and bound inorganic phosphite. Comparable values also are obtained in comparisons of PO3 transfer rates for trans- 1,4-butenediol and 1,4-butynediol monophosphates relative to 1 M allyl and propargyl alcohols, respectively, in the presence of bound phosphite. An increased rate of transfer also is produced by binding the xylosyl part of the glucose ring, either when the acceptor is an hydroxyl group attached to the ring or when it is the hydroxyl group of a water molecule, e.g., as in the water reaction facilitated by bound xylose 1-phosphate. These and other results suggest that most of the differences between the rates of the water reaction and the glucose 1-phosphate reaction can be rationalized in terms of four fairly discrete factors whose approximate values are as follows: the PO4 factor, 1000-fold; the C-OH/H-OH factor, 100-fold; the nucleophile-binding factor, 250-fold; and the (CHOH)3-bridging factor, 200-fold...