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We cloned the Penicillium chrysogenum trpC gene from a genomic library by complementation of an Escherichia coli trpC mutant lacking phosphoribosylanthranilate isomerase activity. The gene encodes a 2.7 kb poly(A)+ RNA. We localized the gene by sequence analysis in a 2.9 kb DNA insert found in the smallest plasmid selected from the library. Sequence data strongly suggest that the organization of the gene is similar to that described in other Ascomycetes. We found that a DNA fragment which codes only for the carboxy-terminal portion of the polypeptide is sufficient for complementation of the E. coli trpC9830 mutation.

This paper demonstrates the formation of "active CO2" (CO2-P), a precursor of carbamoyl phosphate (CP), with frog liver carbamoyl-phosphate synthetase. Absence of ammonia is essential for the demonstration by pulse incubation with H14CO3- of CO2-P. Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and acetylglutamate are required for the synthesis of CO2-P, which is highly unstable in aqueous solutions (t1/2 = 0.75 s at 24 degrees C at neutral pH). In the absence of ammonia, CO2-P attains rapidly a steady-state level, which depends on the concentration of ATP and HCO3-. The "apparent KM'S" are approximately equal to those found for the adenosine triphosphate (ATPase) activity of the enzyme. The maximum level of CO2-P is limited by the amount of enzyme, and approximates 4 mol of intermediate/mol of enzyme. The unprotonated form of ammonia seems to be the species reacting with CO2-P to produce CP. The reaction of CO2-P and NH3 is very fast (rate constant kn = 8 x 10(4) M-1 S-1) and does not consume free ATP. Therefore, the 2 mol of ATP necessary for CP synthesis binds or reacts with the enzyme and/or CO2 prior to reaction with NH3. The reaction of CO2-P with NH3 also takes place in acetone under conditions at which the enzyme is not active, suggesting little or no assistance from enzyme catalysis or that a part of the catalytic site is "frozen" by the solvent in the active conformation. In the light of these and other findings, a new scheme is proposed for the mechanism of frog liver carbamoyl-phosphate synthetase and some considerations are made on the chemical nature of the intermediate and on the possible evolutionary significance of the reaction of CO2-P with NH3 in acetone.

When we incubated biotin carboxylase from Escherichia coli with ATP in absence of biotin we observed HCO3- -dependent ATP hydrolysis, which was activated by 10% ethanol in the same proportion as the activity of D-biotin carboxylation assayed in the presence of biotin. The two activities exhibited identical heat stability and were protected equally by glycerol; both required Mg2+ and K+ and showed similar dependency on the concentration of ATP. Biotin assay excluded potential contamination by traces of biotin as a cause of the observed ATP hydrolysis, and this was confirmed by the findings that carboxybiotin did not accumulate and that avidin was uninhibitory. Therefore we concluded that this HCO3- -dependent ATPase was genuinely a partial activity of biotin carboxylase. This partial activity supports a sequential mechanism for enzymatic carboxylation of biotin in which HCO3- is activated by ATP in a first step. It is consistent with the initial formation of the carbonic-phosphoric anhydride (HOCO2PO3(2-)), and it does not agree with models where biotin is phosphorylated by ATP prior to reaction with HCO3-. It appears that enzymes that use HCO3- for carboxylation, including biotin-dependent carboxylases, phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase, and carbamoyl phosphate synthetase, activate HCO3- by a common mechanism involving the initial formation of the carbonic-phosphoric anhydride.

Mammalian liver mitochondrial carbamoyl phosphate synthetase, a polypeptide of 160 kDa, is activated allosterically by N-acetyl-L-glutamate. The analogue of this activator N-(chloroacetyl)-L-[14C]glutamate has been found to serve as a photoaffinity label for this enzyme. The specificity was demonstrated by the drastic reduction in the radioactivity bound to the protein when (a) an excess of unlabeled acetylglutamate was present during the irradiation and (b) the enzyme was replaced by pyruvate kinase, an enzyme that is not affected by acetylglutamate. The labeling was due to the photoactivation of the chloroacetyl group since there was no labeling under equal conditions with acetyl[14C]glutamate. To localize the binding site, limited proteolysis was used. Trypsin cleaves carbamoyl phosphate synthetase into complementary NH2- and COOH-terminal fragments of about 140 and 20 kDa, respectively [Powers-Lee, S. G., & Corina, K. (1986) J. Biol. Chem. 261, 15349-15352], but only the latter was found to be labeled. Similarly, of the various fragments generated by elastase, only two, of 20 and 120 kDa, contain the COOH terminus [see Powers-Lee and Corina (1986) above] and were found to be labeled. Thus, the binding site for acetylglutamate is within 20 kDa from the COOH terminus. This excludes the possibility that the acetylglutamate binding site evolved from an ancestral substrate site for glutamine: this substrate binds to the small subunit of the Escherichia coli enzyme, which is homologous to the NH2-terminal domain of the rat liver enzyme. Exhaustive tryptic digestion of photolabeled carbamoyl phosphate synthetase yielded a single radioactive peak, suggesting that the labeling is restricted to a single minimal tryptic peptide.