Studies on the adenylate kinase isozymes from the serum and erythrocyte of normal and Duchenne dystrophic patients. Isolation, physicochemical properties, and several comparisons with the Duchenne dystrophic aberrant enzyme.

Abstract Two species of adenylate kinase isozymes (ATP:AMP phosphotransferase, EC 2.7.4.3) from human Duchenne dystrophic serum were separated by Blue Sepharose CL-6B affinity column chromatography. One of these species was the "aberrant" adenylate kinase isozyme, found specifically in the Duchenne type of this disease (Hamada, M., Okuda, H., Oka, K., Watanabe, T., Ueda, K., Nojima, M., Kuby, S.A., Manship, M., Tyler, F., and Ziter, F. (1981) Biochim. Biophys. Acta 660, 227-237). The separated aberrant form possessed a molecular size of 98,000 (+/- 1,500), whereas the normal serum species of the enzyme was 87,000 (+/- 1,600) by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, by gel filtration, and by sedimentation equilibrium. The sedimentation coefficient of each species was found to be 5.8 S for the aberrant form and 5.6 S for the normal form, respectively. The subunit size (Mr = 24,700) of the aberrant enzyme in 8 M urea proved to be very similar to that of the normal human liver enzyme (Hamada, M., Sumida, M., Okuda, H., Watanabe, T., Nojima, M., and Kuby, S.A. (1982) J. Biol. Chem. 257, 13120-13128), and the normal species subunit (Mr = 21,700) was found to be very similar to that of the normal human muscle enzyme (Kuby, S.A., Fleming, G., Frischat, A., Cress, M.C., and Hamada, M. (1983) J. Biol. Chem. 258, 1901-1907). Both species were tetrameric enzymes in the serum. The amino acid composition for the normal species was similar to that for the muscle-type enzyme, and that for the aberrant species was similar to the liver enzyme, but with some notable exceptions in both cases. Thus, the normal species had no tryptophan and two half-cystine residues/subunit; whereas, there was 1 tryptophan and 4 half-cystine residues/subunit of the aberrant molecule. The amino acid composition of both serum isozymes when compared to their respective muscle or liver-type enzyme differed mainly in the content of Glu, Asp, His, Leu, Ile, Gly. Kinetic properties of the two forms of human serum adenylate kinase were studied at limiting concentrations of both ADP3- and MgADP- in the reverse reaction and of AMP2- and MgATP2- in the forward reaction. The type of reaction mechanism compatible with the data was a two-substrate random quasiequilibrium type of mechanism without independent binding of the substrates and with a rate-limiting step largely at the interconversion of the ternary complexes.