A 'random steady-state' model for the pyruvate dehydrogenase and alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase enzyme complexes

The multienzyme complexes, pyruvate dehydrogenase and alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase, involved in the central metabolism of Escherichia coli consist of multiple copies of three different enzymes, E1, E2 and E3, that cooperate to channel substrate intermediates between their active sites. The E2 components form the core of the complex, while a mixture of E1 and E3 components binds to the core. We present a random steady-state model to describe catalysis by such multienzyme complexes. At a fast time scale, the model describes the enzyme catalytic mechanisms of substrate channeling at a steady state, by polynomially approximating the analytic solution of a biochemical master equation. At a slower time scale, the structural organization of the different enzymes in the complex and their random binding/unbinding to the core is modeled using methods from equilibrium statistical mechanics. Biologically, the model describes the optimization of catalytic activity by substrate sharing over the entire enzyme complex. The resulting enzymatic models illustrate the random steady state (RSS) for modeling multienzyme complexes in metabolic pathways.