The sulfate activation pathway is essential for the assimilation of sulfate and, in many bacteria, is comprised of three reactions: the synthesis of adenosine 5-phosphosulfate (APS), the hydrolysis of GTP, and the 3-phosphorylation of APS to produce 3-phosphoadenosine 5-phosphosulfate (PAPS), whose sulfuryl group is reduced or transferred to other metabolites. The entire sulfate activation pathway is organized into a single complex in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Although present in many bacteria, these tripartite complexes have not been studied in detail. Initial rate characterization of the mycobacterial system reveals that it is poised for extremely efficient throughput: at saturating ATP, PAPS synthesis is 5800 times more efficient than APS synthesis. The APS kinase domain of the complex does not appear to form the covalent E⅐P intermediate observed in the closely related APS kinase from Escherichia coli. The stoichiometry of GTP hydrolysis and APS synthesis is 1:1, and the APS synthesis reaction is driven 1.1 ؋ 10 6 -fold further during GTP hydrolysis; the system harnesses the full chemical potential of the hydrolysis reaction to the synthesis of APS. A key energycoupling step in the mechanism is a ligand-induced isomerization that enhances the affinity of GTP and commits APS synthesis and GTP hydrolysis to the completion of the catalytic cycle. Ligand-induced increases in guanine nucleotide affinity observed in the mycobacterial system suggest that it too undergoes the energycoupling isomerization.The sulfate activation pathway in Mycobacterium tuberculosis is organized into a single complex that consists of three catalytic activities: an adenylyl-transferase (ATP sulfurylase), encoded by cysD, that catalyzes nucleophilic attack of sulfate at the ␣-phosphorous of ATP to produce adenosine 5Ј-phosphosulfate (APS); 1 a GTPase, encoded by cysN (a member of the EF-Tu family) (1, 2), whose activity is linked to the kinetics and energetics of the ATP sulfurylase reaction; and APS kinase, located at the C terminus of the cysN subunit, that phosphorylates APS at the 3Ј-hydroxyl to produce 3Ј-phosphoadenosine 5Ј-phosphosulfate (PAPS) (Reactions 1-3, respectively).The M. tuberculosis and Escherichia coli cysD and cysN sequences share considerable similarity; however, the E. coli APS kinase is expressed as a separate polypeptide, rather than a CysN domain. The organism-dependent fusion of the early cysteine biosynthetic enzymes is particularly interesting, given that the E. coli

p21(WAF1/CIP1) is transcriptionally activated by wt p53 and inhibits G1 associated cyclins, a major mechanism by which p53 inhibits cellular proliferation. Archival breast cancers (798) with a median follow-up of 16.3 years were used to explore the prognostic value of p21 immunohistochemical analyses. p21 immunostaining was detected in the majority (726/798: 91%) of breast cancers as well as adjacent in situ carcinomas (125/170: 74%), hyperplastic lesions (140/349: 40%) and normal breast epithelium adjacent to carcinoma (3/89: 3%). Complete immunonegativity was observed in only 9% of invasive cancers and was associated with p53 immunopositivity (p < 0.05). Univariate analysis of all patients showed that p21 negativity was associated with a longer disease specific survival (relative risk (RR) 1.5). Node positive p21- patients also showed a longer disease free and disease specific survival as compared to tumor p21+ patients. In node negative patients, p53 positivity but not p21 alone, was significantly associated with a shortened disease free survival (RR = 1.6). Node negative patients who were p53+ p21-, in particular had the shortest disease free survival compared to other p53, p21 subgroups (i.e., p21 negativity was associated with a worse outcome). Multivariate analysis of lymph node negative patients (n > 300) demonstrated that tumor size and tumor grade were independently predictive of outcome, whereas neither p53 nor p21 were significant. For node positive patients, p21 positivity (p = 0.05), p53 positivity (p = 0.03), a higher number of positive nodes, larger tumor size, steroid receptor negativity, high proliferation rate, and erbB-2 expression were each independently associated with poor outcome. In summary, p21 negativity was inversely correlated with p53 immunopositivity in the majority of cases. p21 negative tumor patients had an improved outcome if they were node positive, whereas p21 status was not significantly associated with survival in node negative patients. This observation may be due to the reported 'uncoupling of S phase and mitosis' associated with a loss of p21 expression which may result in enhanced sensitivity to chemotherapy.