title: Biosynthesis of porphyrin precursors. Purification and characterization of mammalian L-alanine:gamma,delta-dioxovaleric acid aminotransferase.
abstract: Bovine liver mitochondria have been found to contain an enzyme which will catalyze the formation of delta-aminolevulinic acid via a transamination reaction rather than via the condensation of glycine and succinyl coenzyme A. The enzyme, L-alanine: gamma,delta-dioxovaleric acid aminotransferase (gamma,delta-dioxovalerate transaminase) was isolated and purifed to apparent homogeneity. gamma,delta-Dioxovalerate transaminase is quite stable, has optimal activity at pH 6.9, requires pyridoxal phosphate as a cofactor and has an apparent molecular weight of 240,000. The enzyme has high specificity for both substrates. The Km for L-alanine is 3.7 x 10(-3) M and the Km for gamma,delta-dioxovalerate is 2.4 x 10(-4) M. Plots of 1/gamma,delta-dioxovalerate against 1/v at varying alanine concentrations suggested a ping-pong reaction mechanism. Although the enzyme appeared to be a typical transaminase, exhaustive experiments failed to demonstrate reversibility of the reaction. The capacity of gamma,delta-dioxovalerate transaminase to synthesize delta-aminolevulinic acid appears to be far greater than the capacity of delta-aminolevulinic acid synthase from the same source. The possibility that gamma,delta-dioxovalerate transaminase plays a role in the biosynthesis of delta-aminolevulinic acid in vivo must be considered.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002417:Cattle; D004355:Drug Stability; D007700:Kinetics; D008930:Mitochondria, Liver / Q000201:enzymology*; D008970:Molecular Weight; D011166:Porphyrins / Q000096:biosynthesis*; D013379:Substrate Specificity; D000637:Transaminases / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D011166:Porphyrins; D000637:Transaminases; C019687:aminolevulinate aminotransferase