title: Pantothenate kinase regulation of the intracellular concentration of coenzyme A.
abstract: Pantothenate kinase (PanK) is the key regulatory enzyme in the CoA biosynthetic pathway in bacteria and is thought to play a similar role in mammalian cells. We examined this hypothesis by identifying and characterizing two murine cDNAs that encoded PanK. The two cDNAs were predicted to arise from alternate splicing of the same gene to yield different mRNAs that encode two isoforms (mPanK1alpha and mPanK1beta) with distinct amino termini. The predicted protein sequence of mPanK1 was not related to bacterial PanK but exhibited significant similarity to Aspergillus nidulans PanK. mPanK1alpha was most highly expressed in heart and kidney, whereas mPanK1beta mRNA was detected primarily in liver and kidney. Pantothenate was the most abundant pathway component (42.8%) in normal cells providing clear evidence that pantothenate phosphorylation was a rate-controlling step in CoA biosynthesis. Enhanced mPanK1beta expression eliminated the intracellular pantothenate pool and triggered a 13-fold increase in intracellular CoA content. mPanK1beta activity in vitro was stimulated by CoA and strongly inhibited by acetyl-CoA illustrating that differential modulation of mPanK1beta activity by pathway end products also contributed to the management of CoA levels. These data support the concept that the expression and/or activity of PanK is a determining factor in the physiological regulation of the intracellular CoA concentration.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee 38105, USA.
authors.forename: C O
authors.initials: CO
authors.lastname: Rock
authors.forename: R B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Calder
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Karim
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jackowski
mesh_terms: D017398:Alternative Splicing; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001233:Aspergillus nidulans / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D003065:Coenzyme A / Q000378:metabolism*; D020224:Expressed Sequence Tags; D006706:Homeostasis; D007527:Isoenzymes / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D007700:Kinetics; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008956:Models, Chemical; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D017853:Phosphotransferases (Alcohol Group Acceptor) / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D011994:Recombinant Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
chemical_list: D007527:Isoenzymes; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D017853:Phosphotransferases (Alcohol Group Acceptor); C023088:pantothenate kinase; D003065:Coenzyme A