J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 262, Issue 36, 17450-17454, Dec, 1987

The properties of hybrid F1-ATPase enzymes suggest that a cyclical catalytic mechanism involving three catalytic sites occurs

R Rao and AE Senior
Department of Biochemistry, University of Rochester Medical Center, New York 14642.

Maximal rates of ATP hydrolysis catalyzed by F1-ATPase enzymes are known to involve strong positive catalytic site cooperativity. There are three potential catalytic nucleotide-binding sites on F1. Two important and unanswered questions are (i) whether all three potential catalytic sites must interact cooperatively to yield maximal rates of ATP hydrolysis and (ii) whether a cyclical three-site mechanism operates as suggested by several authors. We have studied these two questions here by measuring the ATPase activities of hybrid enzymes containing normal beta-, gamma-, delta-, and epsilon-subunits together with different combinations of mutant and normal alpha-subunits. The mutant alpha-subunits were derived from uncA401, uncA447, and uncA453 mutant E. coli F1-ATPase, in which positive cooperativity between catalytic sites is strongly attenuated by defined mis-sense mutations. Our data show that three normal catalytic sites are required to interact in order to achieve maximal ATPase rates and suggest that a cyclical mechanism does operate. Hybrid enzyme containing one-third mutant alpha-subunit and two-thirds normal alpha-subunits had substantial but submaximal activity, showing that cooperativity between three sites in a noncyclical fashion, or between pairs of sites, can achieve effective catalysis.
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