Amino Acid Metabolism in Plants. III. Purification and Some Properties of a Multispecific Aminotransferase Isolated from Bushbean Seedlings (Phaseolus vulgaris L.)

The development of aromatic aminotransferase activity was examined in cotyledons, roots, and shoots of bushbean seedlings growing under light or dark conditions for the first 2 weeks after germination. All three aromatic amino acid – α-ketoglutarate aminotransferase activities were found to have similar patterns of development in comparable organs grown under the two environmental conditions, and the changes in levels of activity appeared unrelated to variations in the endogenous amounts of free aromatic amino acids in the organs of these seedlings. The highest total activity for all three transamination reactions was found in the shoots of light-grown seedlings after 14 days, whereas the aminotransferases showing highest specific activity were found in roots of both kinds of seedlings after 8 days of growth. The intracellular distribution of the three aromatic aminotransferase activities and of aspartate aminotransferase activity was investigated by differential centrifugation of root homogenates. Only a total of 10% of these two activities was found in the two particulate fractions; the soluble protein in the final supernatant fraction accounted for almost 90% of the total aromatic and aspartate aminotransferase activities.The aromatic aminotransferase in the soluble protein fraction from seedling roots was purified about 600-fold by pH precipitation, ammonium sulfate fractionation, and Sephadex chromatography, and the recovery obtained was 30–35% based on total activity. It was observed that the specific activity for aspartate–α-ketoglutarate aminotransferase increased proportionally to the increase in aromatic aminotransferase activities during the different steps of purification. Gel electrophoresis of the purified fraction revealed only one protein band which corresponded to the product-specific stained band for the three aromatic aminotransferase activities assayed on other gels. The molecular weight of the purified aminotransferase was found to be about 128 000 daltons and its Stokes radius was calculated to be 43 ± 3 Å. The pH optima for the three aromatic aminotransferase activities and for aspartate aminotransferase activity were all found to be 8.5. The purified enzyme showed no specific requirement for pyridoxal phosphate and an examination of its amino acid substrate specificity revealed that it was able to catalyze transamination of L-aspartic acid, L-phenylalanine, L-tyrosine, and L-tryptophan when α-ketoglutarate was provided as amino group acceptor. The enzyme was also found to catalyze transamination of L-glutamic acid when oxaloacetate was used as amino group acceptor, but neither pyruvate nor glyoxylate were utilized as amino acceptors for transamination of any of the amino acids examined. The enzyme was found to catalyze transamination of aspartic acid with much greater velocity than its rate of reaction with any of the three aromatic amino acids, and the inclusion of aspartic acid in a reaction medium at equimolar concentration with any one of the three aromatic amino acids resulted in strong inhibition of the aromatic aminotransferase activity of the enzyme. All the evidence indicates that the soluble protein fraction purified from bushbean roots contained only one aminotransferase which was able to catalyze the transamination of five L-amino acids. The demonstration of the substrate multispeciftcity of this pure enzyme represents the first evidence for a multispecific aminotransferase in plants.