Differences in environment of FAD between NAD-dependent and O2-dependent types of rat liver xanthine dehydrogenase...

Rat liver deflavoxanthine dehydrogenase has been prepared by incubating native enzyme with calcium chloride. On reconstitution with FAD, about 85% of the original activity is recovered, all which is the O2-dependent type. In contrast, when dithiothreitol-treated deflavoenzyme is incubated with FAD, the recovery of activity is almost the same as above, but most of the recovered activity is of the NAD-dependent type. Deflavoenzyme with or without previous treatment with dithiothreitol was also reconstituted with two artificial FAD analogues, 8-mercapto-FAD and 6-OH-FAD. The difference spectra between the reconstituted enzymes and the initial deflavoenzyme indicate that, in each case, the FAD analogue is bound in its neutral form in dithiothreitol-treated enzyme, whereas it is bound in the anionic form in enzyme without previous dithiothreitol treatment. Furthermore, the protonated forms can be converted into the anionic forms on storage with a concomitant change of activity from the NAD-dependent to the O2-dependent type. This clearly indicates different environments around FAD in the two types of enzyme protein, which are shown to be interconvertible through oxidation-reduction of enzyme cysteinyl residues.