Sparsomycin is an antitumor antibiotic produced by Streptomyces sparsogenes. Biosynthetic experiments have previously demonstrated that one component of sparsomycin is derived from L-tryptophan via the intermediacy of (E)-3-(4-oxo-6-methyl-5-pyrimidinyl)acrylic acid and (E)-3-(2,4-dioxo-6-methyl-5-pyrimidinyl)acrylic acid. An enzyme which catalyzes the conversion of (E)-3-(4-oxo-6-methyl-5-pyrimidinyl)acrylic acid to (E)-3-(2,4-dioxo-6-methyl-5-pyrimidinyl)acrylic acid has been purified 740-fold to homogeneity from S. sparsogenes. The molecular mass of the native and denatured enzyme was 87 kDa, indicating that the native enzyme is monomeric. The enzyme required NAD ؉ for activity but lacked rigid substrate specificity, since analogs of both NAD ؉ and 3-(4-oxo-6-methyl-5-pyrimidinyl)acrylic acid could serve as substrates. The enzyme was very weakly inhibited by mycophenolic acid. Monovalent cations were required for activity, with potassium ions being the most effective. The enzyme exhibited sensitivity toward diethylpyrocarbonate and some thiol-directed reagents, and it was irreversibly inhibited by 6-chloropurine. The properties of the enzyme suggest it is mechanistically related to inosine-5-monophosphate dehydrogenase.Sparsomycin (Fig. 1A) is an unusual monooxo-dithioacetalcontaining antibiotic that is produced by Streptomyces sparsogenes var. sparsogenes (3) and Streptomyces cuspidosporus (12). Sparsomycin displays bacteriocidal activity against a wide variety of gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria (27) as well as members of the Archaebacteria (17), and it exhibits potent anticancer activity against a variety of tumors in vivo and against KB human epidermoid carcinoma cells in culture (27). Sparsomycin has also been shown to potentiate the activity of other anticancer agents, such as cisplatin (25). The structure of sparsomycin was elucidated in 1970 by Wiley and MacKellar (33), while the absolute configuration was deduced by Ottenheijm and coworkers in 1981 (26). Several total syntheses of sparsomycin have been reported previously (14,20,25,26). The biological activity of sparsomycin is the result of its ability to inhibit the peptide bond-forming step of protein biosynthesis by interacting with the large ribosomal subunit in a poorly understood, complex manner (16)(17)(18)30). Although the clinical use of sparsomycin is precluded due to drug-related retinopathy, a number of more potent analogs have been prepared which may prove useful in cancer chemotherapy (16). One of the novel components of the sparsomycin molecule is (E)-3-(2,4-dioxo-6-methyl-5-pyrimidinyl)acrylic acid (UCA). Biosynthetic experiments have demonstrated (28) that this compound is derived from L-tryptophan via the intermediacy of (E)-3-(4-oxo-6-methyl-5-pyrimidinyl)acrylic acid (PCA) (Fig. 1A) and that both PCA and UCA are incorporated into sparsomycin. This article describes the first purification and characterization of an enzyme associated with the sparsomycin biosynthetic pathway. This enzyme, UCA synthase, catalyzes the NAD ϩ ...