Chemical modification of 3 alpha,20 beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase with diethyl pyrocarbonate. Evidence for an essential, highly reactive, lysyl residue.

Diethyl pyrocarbonate inactivated the tetrameric 3 alpha,20 beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase with second-order rate constants of 1.63 M-1 s-1 at pH 6 and 25 degrees C or 190 M-1 s-1 at pH 9.4 and 25 degrees C. The activity was slowly and partially restored by incubation with hydroxylamine (81% reactivation after 28 h with 0.1 M hydroxylamine, pH 9, 25 degrees C). NADH protected the enzyme against inactivation with a Kd (10 microM) very close to the Km (7 microM) for the coenzyme. The ultraviolet difference spectrum of inactivated vs. native enzyme indicated that a single histidyl residue per enzyme subunit was modified by diethyl pyrocarbonate, with a second-order rate constant of 1.8 M-1 s-1 at pH 6 and 25 degrees C. The histidyl residue, however, was not essential for activity because in the presence of NADH it was modified without enzyme inactivation and modification of inactivated enzyme was rapidly reversed by hydroxylamine without concomitant reactivation. Progesterone, in the presence of NAD+, protected the histidyl residue against modification, and this suggests that the residue is located in or near the steroid binding site of the enzyme. Diethyl pyrocarbonate also modified, with unusually high reaction rate, one lysyl residue per enzyme subunit, as demonstrated by dinitrophenylation experiments carried out on the treated enzyme. The correlation between inactivation and modification of lysyl residues at different pHs and the protection by NADH against both inactivation and modification of lysyl residues indicate that this residue is essential for activity and is located in or near the NADH binding site of the enzyme.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)