Prostaglandin H synthase kinetics in the two-phase aqueous-micellar system

Reaction mixture for PGHS (prostaglandin-H-synthase) is a two-phase system including micellar hydrophobic phase and hydrophilic aqueous phase. Reagents added to the mixture are distributed between phases, thus concentrations of reagents dissolved in phases can differ significantly from their overall contents. Using dynamic light scattering we found that the hydrophobic phase produced by tween-20 consists of micelles, which radius (4-5nm) does not depend on either tween-20 overall content (0.1%-1% v/v) or arachidonic acid (AA) addition (10-1000μM) or PGHS addition (1μM). Tween-20 overall content changing from 0.1% to 2% v/v dramatically affected COX kinetic, but accounting AA distribution between phases allowed us to estimate "true" parameters, independent of the tween-20 overall content and the concentration of another substrate: KM(Ox) equals 9.8μM O2 in the aqueous phase or 0.0074bar in the gaseous phase, KM(AA) equals 5400μM AA in the phase of tween-20 micelles and 5400/PμM AA in the aqueous phase (P is the distribution ratio for the AA between the aqueous phase and the hydrophobic phase (P≫1000)). This approach allowed to evaluate PS, the distribution ratio for the AA between the hydrophobic phase and the PGHS active center (PS ~310). This coefficient indicates the AA selectivity toward the cyclooxygenase active center.