Primary structure of maize chloroplast adenylate kinase

This paper describes the sequence of adenylate kinase (Mg‐ATP + AMP ⇄ Mg‐ADP + ADP) from maize chloroplasts. This light‐inducible enzyme is important for efficient CO 2 fixation in the C 4 cycle, by removing and recycling AMP produced in the reversible pyruvate phosphate dikinase reaction. The complete sequence was determined by analyzing peptides from cleavages with trypsin, Asp‐N protease and CNBr and subcleavage of a major CNBr peptide with chymotrypsin. N‐terminal Edman degradation and carboxypeptidase digestion established the terminal residues. Electrospray mass spectrometry confirmed the final sequence of 222 residues ( M r = 24867) including one cysteine and one tryptophan. The sequence shows this enzyme to be a long‐variant‐type adenylate kinase, the nearest relatives being adenylate kinases from Enterobacteriaceae. Alignment of the sequence with the adenylate kinase from Escherichia coli reveals 44% identical residues. Since the E. coli structure has been published recently at 0.19‐nm resolution with the inhibitor adenosine(5′)pentaphospho(5′)adenosine (Ap 5 A) [Müller, C. W. & Schulz, G. E. (1992) J. Mol. Biol. 224 , 159–177], catalytically essential residues could be compared and were found to be mostly conserved. Surprisingly, in the nucleotide‐binding Gly‐rich loop Gly‐Xaa‐Pro‐Gly‐Xaa‐Gly‐Lys the middle Gly is replaced by Ala. This is, however, compensated by an Ile→Val exchange in the nearest spatial neighborhood. A Thr→Ala exchange explains the unusual tolerance of the enzyme for pyrimidine nucleotides in the acceptor site.