The UDP-N-acetylglucosamine pyrophosphorylase in Giardia intestinalis (GiUAP) is one of the five inducible enzymes to synthesize UDP-GalNAc, which is an important precursor for cyst wall synthesis. The recombinant UDP-N-acetylglucosamine pyrophosphorylase (rGiUAP) and its mutants G108A and G210A were expressed and identified by SDS-PAGE, size-exclusion chromatography, Western hybridization, and MALDI mass spectrometry. Sequence comparison with other eukaryotic UAPs has identified three specific motifs. Within these motifs alanine substitution for Gly 108 or Gly 210 dramatically reduced the pyrophosphate synthesis, suggesting these amino acids are catalytic residues. Besides, the rGi-UAP was found to have relaxed binding to other uridine-based nucleotides, suggesting the substrate binding pocket is specific to uridine rather than phosphate group(s). Moreover, thermal denaturation analysis showed a significant increase in T m for the rGiUAP and G108A upon binding of the substrate Mg-UTP. In contrast, G210A showed a decreased T m upon binding of Mg-UTP. These results showed that binding of Mg-UTP increases protein stability of the rGiUAP, and the catalytic residue Gly 210 plays a significant role in stabilizing the protein structure. Such stabilization effect induced by substrate binding might be physiologically important as it favors the production of UDP-GlcNAc and hence the downstream GalNAc, which is crucial to survival of Giardia. These results help to define the essential amino acids for catalysis in the GiUAP and reveal the role of Mg-UTP binding in regulation of protein stability.Giardia intestinalis has long been recognized as one of the most early branching eukaryotes (1). It is also one of the most common causes of gastrointestinal infection in human and other mammals (2). When this parasite travels down the intestine in the host, the transformation from a vegetative trophozoite to an infectious cyst requires the synthesis of a rigid cyst wall to survive the adverse environmental conditions outside the host. As this transformation represents a basic adaptive response of a eukaryote to the environment for propagation, G. intestinalis provides a simple eukaryotic model for differentiation and, the biochemical mechanisms of encystation and the cyst wall synthesis have been the subject of intensive investigations in the past decade.Previous studies have shown that cyst wall contains both carbohydrate and protein components (3-9). One of the major components of the outer cyst wall has been identified as a [D-GalNAc(133)-D-GalNAc] n homopolymer by chemical methods, mass spectrometry, and hydrogen nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (10). This GalNAc in G. intestinalis is synthesized from endogenous Glc rather than salvaged from external source (5). The precursor of GalNAc, UDP-GalNAc, is synthesized by five inducible enzymes: glucosamine-6-phosphate isomerase (EC 3.5.99.6); glucosamine-6-phosphate N-acetylase (EC 2.3.1.4); phosphoacetylglucosamine mutase (EC 5.4.2.3, AGM) 2 ; UDP-N-acetylglucosamine py...