Posttranslational regulation of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase
during germination of
Sorghum
seeds: influence of NaCl and
L
-malate
Mohamed Nhiri
a, Naı¨ma Bakrim
a, Nadia Bakrim
a, Zakia El Hachimi-Messouak
c,
Cristina Echevarria
d, Jean Vidal
b,*
aLaboratoire de Biotechnologie,De´partement de Biologie,Uni6ersite´ A.Essaˆdi,Faculte´ des Sciences et Techniques,BP416,Tanger,Morocco bInstitut de Biotechnologie des Plantes,baˆt.630,UMR CNRS8618,Uni6ersite´ de Paris-Sud,Centre d’Orsay,91405Orsay Cedex,France
cLaboratoire de Biochimie,De´partement de Biologie,Uni6ersite´ Med V.Rabat,Rabat,Morocco
dLaboratorio de Fisiologia Vegetal,Facultad de Biologia,Uni6ersidad de Se6illa,A6da.Reina Mercedes,Se6illa,Spain Received 23 June 1999; received in revised form 6 September 1999; accepted 20 September 1999
Abstract
Phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (EC 4.1.1.31: PEPC) was characterized in de-embryonated Sorghumseeds, focusing on the interaction between metabolites and posttranslational control of the enzyme by phosphorylation. Two PEPC polypeptides (108 and 110 kDa) were resolved by SDS/PAGE and shown to increase, in parallel with PEPC activity during seed germination. PEPC displayed very lowKmvalues for PEP (90mM) and inhibition constant (IC50) forL-malate (75mM) in desalted protein extracts
from de-embryonated dry seeds. The inhibition of PEPC by 0.16 mML-malate, pH 7.3, decreased from 70 to 30%, along with
a consistent increase in IC50(75 – 220mM) after 5 days of germination. PEPC phosphorylation was established both in vivo, after
imbibing the seeds with [32P]phosphate, and in vitro in reconstituted assays. A PEPC kinase (PEPCk) was partially purified from
seed protein extracts by blue dextran agarose chromatography and shown to be independent of calcium and to phosphorylate both seed and recombinant C4PEPC fromSorghumon the enzyme’s N-terminal domain. Seed germination, PEPC accumulation
and phosphorylation were severely inhibited in the presence of NaCl in the imbibing medium, although PEPCk content was not altered. However, in vitro, NaCl had no effect on both PEPCk activity and PEPC phosphorylation. On the other hand,L-malate was a potent inhibitor of seed PEPCk activity in in vitro assays. Since NaCl also decreased the rate ofL-malate consumption in
the imbibing grain, the salt inhibition of PEPC phosphorylation was suggested to be due to the concentration-dependent blocking of PEPCk activity in vivo by this compound. Consistent with these data, germination and PEPC phosphorylation were inhibited, while PEPCk levels were not altered, when seeds were germinated in the presence of L-malate. © 2000 Published by Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:Sorghum; Seed phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase; Enzyme kinetics; Protein phosphorylation; Salt stress
www.elsevier.com/locate/plantsci
1. Introduction
Phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPC) is widely distributed in plants where it is involved in a number of physiological contexts [1]. In C4 plants, a specific isoenzyme is involved in the initial fixation of atmospheric CO2during C4 pho-tosynthesis. In illuminated leaves, this PEPC form is phosphorylated on a regulatory serine located in the N-terminus of the enzyme subunit [1 – 3]. The Abbre6iations:APS-IgG, anti-phosphorylation site antibody; BDA,
blue dextran agarose; IC50, concentration of the inhibitor causing a 50% decrease in the initial PEPC activity; Km, Michaelis – Menten constant; PEP, phosphoenolpyruvate; PEPC, phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase; PEPCk, phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase kinase.
* Corresponding author. Tel.:+33-1-6933-6344; fax:+ 33-1-6933-6423.
E-mail address:jean.vidal@ibp.u-psud.fr (J. Vidal)
Ca2+-independent PEPC kinase (PEPCk) is
up-regulated via a light-dependent transduction cas-cade [3]. In seeds, a heterotrophic PEPC whose activity is increased during maturation is thought to provide carbon skeletons for the synthesis of amino and fatty acids [4 – 8], thus contributing to accumulation of protein and lipid, while its role during germination is still unclear [9]. Consistent with this view are recent results on barley seeds showing that the carbon flux through PEPC rel-ative to pyruvate kinase increases 3 – 5-fold to-gether with a 5-fold increase in PEPC activity during maturation and acidification of the starchy endosperm which is due to L-malate
ac-cumulation [8]. Two immunologically-related PEPC polypeptides (103 and 108 kDa) have been identified in a variety of seeds from C3 plants like castor oil, wheat and barley [4,6,7]. Both polypeptides have been shown to be phos-phorylated in vitro and in vivo during germina-tion of wheat seeds [6]. Recent results have documented the fact that a Ca2+-independent
PEPCk is already present in dry barley seeds and does not necessitate the functioning of a transduction cascade for up-regulation during subsequent germination [9].
Very little is known about seed PEPC from graminaceous C4 plants. It was reported that the enzyme and corresponding mRNA are synthe-sized in imbibing Sorghum seeds [10]. In the present work, the fate and properties of Sorghum
seed PEPC have been investigated, paying partic-ular attention to the metabolite and salt effect on the phosphorylation process of the enzyme during germination.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Plant material
Sorghum 6ulgare (var. Tamaran) seeds were sterilized in 5% (v/v) NaOCl for 15 min and thoroughly washed with sterile water. Seeds were germinated either on filter paper soaked in sterile distilled water or on sterile distilled water con-taining different concentrations (50, 100, 150, 200 mM) of NaCl, or in 10 mM Hepes – KOH, pH 7+10 mM L-malate, in Petri dishes. The
dishes were placed in darkness in a sterile cham-ber at 24°C.
2.2. Seed extracts
Dry seeds were de-embryonated, or germinated seeds separated from the seedling using a razor blade prior to extraction of soluble proteins. The material (ten seeds) was chopped and ground thor-oughly on ice in a prechilled mortar with washed sand in 1 ml of medium A containing 100 mM Tris – HCl, pH 8, 10 mM MgCl2, 1 mM EDTA, 5% (v/v) glycerol, 14 mM b-mercaptoethanol, 10
mg/ml chymostatin, 10 mg/ml leupeptin, 1 mM PMSF. The homogenate was centrifuged at 120 000×g for 5 min (Beckman ultracentrifuge TL100), and the supernatant fluid was used as a crude extract or rapidly filtered through Sephadex G-25 equilibrated with medium A without b -mer-captoethanol (desalted extract).
2.3. Immunocharacterization of seed PEPC
Proteins from desalted extracts were subjected to 10% SDS-PAGE [11] for 2 h, 10 V/cm, at room temperature in a Bio-Rad electrophoresis cell. Proteins were electroblotted overnight to a nitro-cellulose membrane at 30 V, 4°C in a Bio-Rad transfer blot apparatus. The membrane was blocked at room temperature by a 4 h incubation in TBS (20 mM Tris – HCl, 0.15 M NaCl, pH 7.9) containing 5% (w/v) powdered milk. PEPC was immuno-labeled by a 3 h incubation of the mem-brane at room temperature in 10 ml of TBS con taining 20 mg of affinity-purified N-terminal IgG (APS-IgG) [12]. Subsequent detection was by a peroxidase assay (affinity-purified goat anti-rabbit IgG horseradish conjugate from Sigma).
2.4. Purification of seed PEPCk
This was performed as described by Ref. [13]. All steps were carried out at 4°C. De-embryonated dry seeds [20] were homogenized using a mortar and pestle in 2 ml of medium A, and the brei ultracentrifuged at 120 000×g as indicated above. Ammonium sulfate was added to 60% saturation and precipitated proteins collected by centrifuga-tion in an Eppendorf centrifuge. The protein pellet was disolved in 200 ml medium B containing: 50 mM Tris – HCl pH 7.8, 20% glycerol and 1 mM DTT and dialyzed against the same medium (2×
(BDA: 1 ml) equilibrated in medium B (at a flow rate of 0.05 ml/min). After thorough washing with medium B, bound proteins were eluted with medium B containing 500 mM NaCl. Peak frac-tions were pooled and precipitated with 60% satu-ration of ammonium sulfate, after which proteins sedimented by centrifugation were resuspended in 100ml of 50 mM Tris – HCl pH 8, 30% glycerol, 1 mM dithiothreitol, and stored at −20°C until use.
2.5. In 6itro phosphorylation
The reconstituted phosphorylation assay (50 ml) system contained: 50 mM Tris – HCl, pH 8, 5 mM MgCl2, 0.04 mM CaCl2, 20% glycerol, 1 mM DTT, 74 kBq [g-32P]ATP (37 GBq/mmol), 0.25 mM P1P5-di(adenosine-5%)-pentaphosphate (an adenylate kinase inhibitor), 4 mM phosphocre-atine, 10 U of creatine phosphokinase (compo-nents of the ADP-scavenging system), and an aliquot of the desalted crude extract (30 mg of protein). In assays where partially, BDA-purified seed protein kinase was tested, 0.2 U/6 mg of C4 PEPCs (S8; wild type or S8/D, Ser8 replaced by aspartate) were added as phosphorylation and control targets [14]. These Sorghum PEPC forms were produced as recombinant proteins in Es
-cherichia coli and subsequently purified from bac-terial extracts by immunoaffinity chromatography [15]. In some assays, the PEPC target was incu-bated in the presence of 10mg of APS-IgG for 10 min at 4°C prior to in vitro phosphorylation test. After 45 min incubation at 30°C, the phosphoryla-tion reacphosphoryla-tion was halted by addiphosphoryla-tion of 10 ml of SDS sample buffer (50 mM Tris – HCl, pH 8, 1% (w/v) SDS, 10% (v/v) 2-mercaptoethanol, 20% (v/
v) glycerol and 1% (w/v) bromophenol blue) and heated for 2 min at 100°C. Denatured samples were analyzed by SDS/PAGE (10% acrylamide) according to [11], and autoradiographed.
2.6. In situ 32P-labeling and immunoprecipitation
of seed PEPC
De-embryonated seeds (ten) were allowed to imbibe in 200 ml of distilled water containing 74×105 Bq of [32P]phosphate (specific radioactiv-ity 74×102 GBq/mol) for 48 h at room tempera-ture. The seeds were washed thoroughly (5 times) with distilled water to remove remaining labeled phosphate and proteins were extracted in 1 ml
medium A as described above. The homogenate was centrifuged at 15 000×g for 5 min. An aliquot of the clarified sample containing 14.4 mU of PEPC was incubated overnight, 4°C, with the appropriate amount of protein A-purified APS-IgG (20mg of protein). Protein A Sepharose beads were added to the incubated sample to 6% (w/v) and vortexed briefly. The beaded immunocom-plexes were washed five times with washing medium (500 mM Tris – HCl pH 8, 1.5 M NaCl and 1% (v/v) Triton X-100). The final pellet of centrifugation was solubilized in 100 ml of SDS sample buffer, boiled for 5 min, and protein were separated by 10% SDS-PAGE [11] for 2 h at 100 V and room temperature. Proteins were electrob-loted overnight to a nitrocellulose membrane at 30 V, 4°C in a Bio-Rad transfert blot apparatus. The membrane was dried and exposed to Kodak film at −80°C, then seed PEPC was immunocharac-terized as described in Section 2.3.
2.7. PEPC acti6ity assays and L-malate sensiti6ity test
Unless otherwise stated, the standard assay con-ditions were as described in [2,16].
2.8. Determination of proteins and L-malate
Soluble protein concentration was measured ac-cording to [17] using the Bio-Rad dye reagent and bovine serum albumin as a standard. L-malate
concentration was determined in aliquots of the seed crude extracts by a spectrophotometric assay in the presence of NAD-dependend MDH and NADH according to [18].
3. Results
sug-Fig. 1. Immunological detection of Sorghum seed phospho-enolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPC). Soluble proteins from de-salted seed extracts (30ml aliquot containing, 5.2, 7.6, 9.6 mU of PEPC from dry seed, 3 and 5 days of germination in distilled water, respectively) were subjected to SDS-PAGE. Lane 1, dry seed; lane 2, germinated for 3 days in water; lane 3, germinated for 5 days in water.
found to be close to 90 mM (Table 1) and did not vary significantly in the range of pH values (pH 7 – 8) investigated (not shown). The IC50 value for the feedback inhibitorL-malate at suboptimal PEP
concentration (90 mM) and pH (7.3) was 75 mM (Table 1). During seed imbibition in distilled water for 5 days, the Km for PEP decreased slightly (65
mM), while the IC50 for L-malate was increased to 220 mM, consistent with the observed decrease in the % inhibition by L-malate (160mM), from 75 to
30% during the same imbibition period (Table 1). In addition, the activity ratio of PEPC (pH 8/7.3) was shown to decrease from 2.6 to 1.4 during seed germination (Fig. 1).
Both the decrease in L-malate sensitivity of
PEPC, as measured at suboptimal but physiologi-cal pH (7.3), and in the activity ratio (pH 8/7.3) have been observed already in the case of the photosynthetic Sorghumand maize enzyme after a dark/light transition, as well as for various CAM and C3plant PEPCs, including that of germinating wheat and barley seeds [1,6,9]. It is now well established that this is due to phosphorylation by a calcium-independent PEPCk of the regulatory serine in the consensus, N-terminal domain of PEPC [1,3,9,14,19]. This process was therefore investigated in more detail on Sorghumseeds that were allowed to imbibe for 3 days in the presence of [32P]phosphate, during which the sensitivity of PEPC to L-malate was decreased to about 50%. In
a Western blot, APS-IgG revealed a PEPC band (Fig. 2B1) which was found to be radiolabeled following autoradiography of the membrane (Fig. 2A1). In this case, the two PEPC bands were not resolved; this was presumably due to partial recov-ery of the enzyme during the immunoprecipitation process, however, the experiment clearly estab-lished that at least one PEPC subunit underwent in vivo phosphorylation during seed imbibition. gesting that they are intact PEPC subunits. The
APS-IgG-based observations documented that the PEPC subunits from Sorghum seeds possess the consensus phosphorylation domain common to all plant PEPCs known so far [3]. PEPC activity was shown to increase significantly, when measured both in non-limiting (pH 8, 2.5 mM PEP) and limiting (pH 7.3, 0.09 mM PEP), together with the amount of both polypeptides during seed imbibi-tion (Fig. 1).
The substrate (PEP) saturation curve for PEPC has been determined in desalted extracts from de-embryonated dry seeds at pH 8. The curve was right rectangular hyperbola (typical Michaelis – Menten kinetics; not shown) and theKmvalue was
Table 1
Kinetic parameters ofSorghumseed phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPC)a
PEPC (mU/seed)
Seed treatment IC50(mM) KmPEP (mM) % Inhibition by L-malate
5.2
Dry 0.075 0.09 75
9.6 0.22 0.065
Germinated 30
aA homogeneous sample of seedlings (ten) showing similar growth was used for the kinetic analyses of PEPC from germinated
seeds. PEPC activity was measured from an aliquot of desalted protein extract (30mg proteins), at pH 8, 2.5 mM PEP and the other components of the carboxylation reaction as described in Section 2. IC50values for L-malate and percent inhibition by L-malate (160mM) were determined at pH 7.3, 90mM PEP. TheKmwas calculated from Lineweaver–Burk plots from substrate
Fig. 2. In vivo phosphorylation of phosphoenolpyruvate car-boxylase (PEPC) in imbibing seeds. SDS PAGE, electrotrans-fer of proteins from the gel and radiochemical/immunological detection of PEPC polypeptide are as described in Section 2. Lane 1, proteins from the seed extract (14.4 mU of PEPC); lane 2, molecular weight markers. (A) Autoradiograph of the membrane. (B) Immunological detection of PEPC.
Fig. 4. In vitro phosphorylation of C4phosphoenolpyruvate
carboxylase (PEPC) by partially purified seed phospho-enolpyruvate carboxylase kinase (PEPCk). The seed PEPCk was purified by chromatography on blue dextran agarose. The assay media contained the components of the phosphory-lation reaction (Section 2) and exogenous, immunopurified C4
PEPC from Sorghum: Lane 1, 0.2 U/6 mg of S8/D PEPC mutant; lane 2, 0.2 U/6mg of wild type recombinant PEPC; lane 3, 0.2 U/6mg of wild type recombinant PEPC+0.5 mM EGTA; lane 4, 0.2 U/6 mg of wild type recombinant PEPC preincubated with 10mg of affinity-purified APS-IgG (15 min incubation at 4°C). (A) Coomassie blue staining of proteins. (B) Corresponding autoradiography.
PEPC phosphorylation was also investigated in vitro in crude desalted protein extracts from de-embryonated dry seeds followed by SDS-PAGE analysis and autoradiography of phosphorylated proteins. The endogenous C3-like PEPC was shown to be radiolabeled in the absence (Fig. 3B1), or the presence (Fig. 3B2), of EGTA, while addition of the APS-IgG markedly inhibited PEPC phosphorylation (Fig. 3B3). This suggested that Sorghum seeds contain a Ca2+-independent
PEPCk phosphorylating the N-terminal domain of the seed PEPC. This PEPCk was subsequently purified from dry seeds by affinity chromatogra-phy on blue dextran agarose and assayed in phos-phorylation assays in the presence of the recombinant, non-phosphorylated C4 PEPC as target [13,20]. Consistently, the partially purified enzyme was found to be insensitive to calcium chelation (Fig. 4B2,3). In addition, it did not phosphorylate either purified, recombinant S8/D C4 PEPC target (aspartate mutant; Fig. 4B1), or wild type C4PEPC and seed PEPC in the presence
of the APS IgG (Fig. 4B4), thus demonstrating that phosphorylation was on the regulatory serine (Ser 8 in the case of the C4PEPC) of the N-termi-nal domain in both type of PEPC. These findings also established that this protein kinase is already present in dry seeds, as found in previous work with wheat and barley seeds [6,7,9]. Further exper-iments must be performed to clarify whether this enzyme is similar to the 30 – 37 kDa PEPCk al-ready described in various plant systems [1].
As mentioned above, PEPC activity showed an approximate 1.8-fold increase on a per seed basis when measured under non-limiting conditions of substrate and pH, after 5 days of imbibition (Table 1; Fig. 1). Since the effect of phosphorylat-ing the enzyme on its velocity is low at this pH value [21], this change reflected a corresponding enhancement of PEPC protein content, which is supported by the protein pattern of the Western blot experiment (Fig. 1). Therefore, both PEPC protein accumulation and phosphorylation took place during seed imbibition. Whether the former is due to enhancement of transcription or changes in the stability of PEPC mRNA/protein is not known.
The posttranslational regulation of PEPC in the physiological context of the seed was investigated further by perturbing germination and determin-ing how PEPCk activity and PEPC
Table 2
Effect of NaCl on phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPC) activity, sensitivity toL-malate (phosphorylation state) andL-malate
content during seed germinationa
PEPC (mU/seed)
Seed treatment % inhibition byL-malate L-malate (nmol/10 seeds) Seedling (mm)
75
Dry 5.2 71.5
30 9 30
Germinated 9.6
Germinated+NaCl(mM)
45 13.9 20
50 9
56 31
8 18
100
150 6.9 60 39 15
64 Not determined
6.4 8
200
aExperimental conditions were as described in the legend of Table 1. Data are means of three experiments with different
batches of seeds; S.E.=10%.
tion status responded to these altered conditions. Sodium chloride was shown to severely inhibit the germination of Sorghum seeds (Table 2) in a con-centration-dependent manner and therefore was used to assess this point. In salt-treated plants, it was seen that the increase in PEPC activity/
polypeptide/phosphorylation state (Table 2; Fig. 5) was significantly reduced as the salt concentra-tion was raised in the imbibing medium. More-over, in vitro assays demonstrated that NaCl had no significant effect on both PEPC (not shown) and PEPCk activity (Fig. 6B6,7), and PEPCk con-tent during seed germination (Fig. 7B3). Therefore it is not clear how NaCl could affect negatively PEPC phosphorylation in vivo. In previous work on C4PEPC,L-malate was shown to inhibit PEPC phosphorylation both in reconstituted assays [21] and in situ, in mesophyll protoplasts from Sor
-ghumduring induction of the transduction cascade by light and a weak base [14]. When tested in reconstituted assays containing protein extracts from germinated seeds, this compound was found to block in a similar manner the phosphorylation of exogenous C4PEPC, even at the low concentra-tion of 1 mM (Fig. 6B2 – 5). Interestingly,L-malate
was shown to be present in dry seeds and to undergo an approximate 8-fold decrease in con-centration during germination in distilled water (Table 2). In contrast, L-malate remained
rela-tively high in NaCl-treated seeds (Table 2). Fi-nally, imbibing Sorghum seeds in the presence of different concentrations of L-malate mimicked the
negative effect of salt on seed germination and caused a marked inhibition of PEPC phosphoryla-tion in vivo (in keeping with a high L-malate
sensitivity of the enzyme; Table 3), while the
PEPCk activity was not affected (Fig. 7B2). These observations are consistent with the hypothesis that NaCl inhibits PEPCk activity/PEPC phos-phorylation in vivo through the L-malate content
of seeds.
4. Discussion
In this work, phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase was characterized in imbibing, de-embryonated
Sorghum seeds. Two PEPC polypeptides (108 and 110 kDa) were resolved by SDS/PAGE and shown to contain the N-terminal phosphorylation do-main and to accumulate, in parallel with an in-crease in PEPC activity, during seed germination. Remarkably, theSorghumseed enzyme shows con-siderably higher affinity for the substrate PEP (Km PEP of 90 and 65 mM for the non-phospho and
Fig. 6. Effect ofL-malate and NaCl on the in vitro phospho-rylation of recombinant C4phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase
(PEPC) by seed PEPC kinase (PEPCk). The phosphorylation assays contained 30mg of seed proteins and 0.2 U of purified, recombinant non-phosphorylated C4 PEPC. They were
con-ducted as described in Section 2 in the absence of L-malate (lane 1), or presence, 1 mM (lane 2), 2 mM (lane 3), 5 mM (lane 4) and 10 mM (lane 5). Lanes 6 and 7 corresponded to phosphorylation assays performed in the presence of 10 and 100 mM NaCl, respectively. Proteins were analyzed by SDS-PAGE. (A) Coomassie blue staining of proteins. (B) Corre-sponding autoradiography.
Table 3
Effect of exogenous L-malate on the phosphoenolpyruvate
carboxylase (PEPC) phosphorylation state (as estimated in vitro by the enzyme’s sensitivity to L-malate) during seed
germinationa
Treatment % Inhibition Seedling (mm) by L-malate
Dry 70
Germinated (10 mM Hepes 42 30 KOH, pH 7)
aThe assay for PEPC activity was as defined in Section 2,
pH 7.3, and 160 mM L-malate. Data are means of three
experiments with different batches of seeds; S.E.=10%.
phospho-PEPC, respectively) and sensitivity to-wards the inhibitor L-malate (75 and 220 mM for
the non-phospho and phospho-PEPC, respec-tively) than does the photosynthetic form of the mesophyll (Km: 1100 – 1200 mmM; IC50: 170 – 300 and 1500 mM for non-phospho and phospho-PEPC, respectively) [21 – 23]. This observation probably reflects isoenzyme adaptation to a cellu-lar environment that in Sorghum seeds should be low in PEP.
Seed PEPC is phosphorylated during germina-tion by a PEPCk that resembles its mesophyll homologue in that it is calcium-independent and displays similar chromatographic properties, e.g. affinity chromatography on blue dextran agarose. In mesophyll cells, C4PEPC is regulated by
photo-synthesis-related metabolites; phosphorylated sug-ars, like glucose-6P, act as activators that in addition counteract the negative effect ofL-malate
[1,3,24,25]. It has been demonstrated in vitro that these effectors can also alter the phosphorylation state of C4PEPC via an indirect (target) effect on PEPCk [21,26]. This has also been documented in situ with mesophyll protoplasts incubated in the presence of the metabolites [25]. In the present work it has been established that: (1) PEPC accu-mulation and phosphorylation are inhibited in seeds imbibed in NaCl-enriched medium; (2) PEPCk is already present in dry seeds and its activity in vitro is not altered by the salt, but severely inhibited by L-malate; (3) L-malate is not
readily consumed in salt-treated seeds and its con-tent varies inversely with the phosphorylation state of PEPC; (4) seed germination and in situ PEPC phosphorylation are also inhibited by exogenous
L-malate. Altogether, these findings support the
view that metabolite regulation is the major pro-cess operating on PEPC/PEPCk in germinating seeds. Along these lines, it might be stressed that while the C4PEPC becomes phosphorylated when
L-malate is accumulated in the mesophyll cell of
an illuminatedSorghum leaf, this occurs in germi-nating seeds along with the removal of the metabolite. In fact, the decline in stored L-malate
during germination could reflect its transport to, and effective use by the embryo, but does not
Fig. 7. Effect of an incubation withL-malate or NaCl on in situ phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase kinase (PEPCk) activ-ity during seed germination. Desalted protein extracts were obtained from ten seeds that had been germinated in 10 mM Hepes – KOH, pH 7 (control), 10 mM Hepes – KOH, pH 7+10 mM L-malate, or 10 mM Hepes – KOH, pH 7+100
mM NaCl, for 5 days. Aliquots (30mg of protein) were used to estimate PEPCk activity on recombinant C4 PEPC target
(0.2 U/6mg) in typical phosphorylation medium. The radiola-beled proteins were analyzed by SDS-PAGE and autoradiog-raphy. Lane 1, assay containing proteins from control seeds; lane 2, proteins from NaCl-treated seeds; lane 3, proteins from L-malate-treated seeds. (A) Coomassie blue staining of
necessarily indicate that the carbon flux through PEPC is similarly decreased. Indeed, PEPC would still be committed to sustain this demand after stored L-malate has been markedly, but not
ex-haustively, depleted, and thus would still require protection against the inhibitor. This is consistent with the very low IC50 of the seed enzyme for
L-malate and the observed increase in its
phospho-rylation state which confers on PEPC significant desensitization to the inhibitor, after 5 days of germination.
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