Protein Reviews

Hayao Taguchi

Many bacterial L-lactate dehydrogenases (LDH) are allosteric enzymes, and usually activated by fructose 1,6-bisphosphate (FBP) and often also by substrate pyruvate. The active and inactive state structures demonstrate that Thermus caldophilus, Lactobacillus casei, and Bifidobacterium longum LDHs consistently undergo allosteric transition according to Monod-Wyman-Changeux model, where the active (R) and inactive (T) states of the enzymes coexist in an allosteric equilibrium (pre-existing equilibrium) independently of allosteric effectors. The three enzymes consistently take on open and closed conformations of the homotetramers for the T and R states, coupling the quaternary structural changes with the structural changes in binding sites for substrate and FBP though tertiary structural changes. Nevertheless, the three enzymes undergo markedly different structural changes from one another, indicating that there is a high variety in the allosteric machineries of bacterial LDHs. L. casei LDH undergoes the largest quaternary structural change in the three enzymes, and regulates its catalytic activity though a large linkage frame for allosteric motion. In contrast, T. caldophilus LDH exhibits the simplest allosteric motion in the three enzymes, involving a simple mobile structural core for the allosteric motion. TcLDH likely mediates its allosteric equilibrium mostly through electrostatic repulsion within the protein molecule, providing an insight for regulation machineries in bacterial allosteric LDHs.