Studies on adenosine triphosphate transphosphorylases. XVIII. Synthesis and preparation of peptides and peptide fragments of rabbit muscle ATP-AMP transphosphorylase (adenylate kinase) and their nucleotide-binding properties

Two peptide fragments, derived from the head and tail of rabbit muscle myokinase, were found to possess remarkable and specific ligand-binding properties (Hamada et al., 1979). By initiating systematic syntheses and measurements of equilibrium substrate-binding properties of these two sets of peptides, or portions thereof, which encompass the binding sites for (a) the magnesium complexes of the nucleotide substrates (MgATP^2- and MgADP^-) and (b) the uncomplexed nucleotide substrates (ADP^3- and AMP^2-) of rabbit muscle myokinase, some of the requirements for binding of the substrates to ATP-AMP transphosphorylase are being deduced and chemically outlined. One requirement for tight nucleotide binding appears to be a minimum peptide length of 15-25 residues. In addition, Lys-172 and/or Lys-194 may be involved in the binding of εAMP. The syntheses are described as a set of peptides corresponding to residues 31-45, 20-45, 5-45, and 1-45, and a set of peptides corresponding to residues 178-192, 178-194, and 172-194 of rabbit muscle adenylate kinase. The ligand-binding properties of the first set of synthetic peptides to the fluorescent ligands: εMgATP/εATP and εMgADP/εADP are quantitatively presented in terms of their intrinsic dissociation constants (K′_d) and values of N (maximal number of moles bound per mole of peptide); and compared with the peptide fragment MT-I (1-44) obtained from rabbit muscle myokinase (Kuby et al., 1984) and with the native enzyme (Hamada et al., 1979). In addition, the values of N and K′_d are given for the second set of synthetic peptides to the fluorescent ligands εAMP and εADP as well as for the peptide fragments MT-XII(172-194) and CB-VI(126-194) (Kuby et al., 1984) and, in turn, compared with the native enzyme. A few miscellaneous dissociation constants which had been derived kinetically are also given for comparison (e.g., the K_i for εAMP and the value of {Mathematical expression} obtained for the native enzyme) (Hamada and Kuby, 1978), and the K'_d measured for Cr³⁺ and the synthetic peptide I_1-45 (Fry et al., 1985b).