Branching enzyme I and II isoforms from maize endosperm (mBE I and mBE II, respectively) have quite different properties, and to elucidate the domain(s) that determines the differences, chimeric genes consisting of part mBE I and part mBE II were constructed. When expressed under the control of the T7 promoter in Escherichia coli, several of the chimeric enzymes were inactive. The only fully active chimeric enzyme was mBE II-I BspHI, in which the carboxyl-terminal part of mBE II was exchanged for that of mBE I at a BspHI restriction site and was purified to homogeneity and characterized. Another chimeric enzyme, mBE I-II HindIII, in which the amino-terminal end of mBE II was replaced with that of mBE I, had very little activity and was only partially characterized. The purified mBE II-I BspHI exhibited higher activity than wild-type mBE I and mBE II when assayed by the phosphorylase a stimulation assay. mBE II-I BspHI had substrate specificity (preference for amylose rather than amylopectin) and catalytic capacity similar to mBE I, despite the fact that only the carboxyl terminus was from mBE I, suggesting that the carboxyl terminus may be involved in determining substrate specificity and catalytic capacity. In chain transfer experiments, mBE II-I BspHI transferred more short chains (with a degree of polymerization of around 6) in a fashion similar to mBE II. In contrast, mBE I-II HindIII transferred more long chains (with a degree of polymerization of around 11-12), similar to mBE I, suggesting that the amino terminus of mBEs may play a role in the size of oligosaccharide chain transferred. This study challenges the notion that the catalytic centers for branching enzymes are exclusively located in the central portion of the enzyme; it suggests instead that the amino and carboxyl termini may also be involved in determining substrate preference, catalytic capacity, and chain length transfer.

A highly purified preparation of uridine 5-diphosphate (UDP)-glucose (Glc) dehydrogenase (DH; EC 1.1.1.22) has been characterized from soybean (Glycine max L.) nodules. The enzyme had native and subunit molecular masses of approximately 272 and 50 kD, respectively. UDP-Glc DH displayed typical hyperbolic substrate kinetics and had K m values for UDP-Glc and NAD ؉ of 0.05 and 0.12 mM, respectively. Thymidine 5-diphosphate-Glc and UDP-galactose could replace UDP-Glc as the sugar nucleotide substrate to some extent, but the enzyme had no activity with NADP ؉ . Soybean nodule UDP-Glc DH was labile in the absence of NAD ؉ and was inhibited by a heat-stable, low-molecular-mass solute in crude extracts of soybean nodules. UDP-Glc DH was also isolated from developing soybean seeds and shoots of 5-d-old wheat and canola seedlings and was shown to have similar affinities for UDPGlc and NAD ؉ as those of the soybean nodule enzyme. UDP-Glc DH from all of these sources was most active in young, rapidly growing tissues.

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Incubation of maize branching enzyme, mBEI and mBEII, with 100 microM diethylpyrocarbonate (DEPC) rapidly inactivated the enzymes. Treatment of the DEPC-inactivated enzymes with 100500 mM hydroxylamine restored the enzyme activities. Spectroscopic data indicated that the inactivation of BE with DEPC was the result of histidine modification. The addition of the substrate amylose or amylopectin retarded the enzyme inactivation by DEPC, suggesting that the histidine residues are important for substrate binding. In maize BEII, conserved histidine residues are in catalytic regions 1 (His320) and 4 (His508). His320 and His508 were individually replaced by Ala via site-directed mutagenesis to probe their role in catalysis. Expression of these mutants in E. coli showed a significant decrease of the activity and the mutant enzymes had Km values 10 times higher than the wild type. Therefore, residues His320 and His508 do play an important role in substrate binding.

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