The predominantly nonhydrolytic action of alpha amylases on alpha-maltosyl fluoride

Crystalline alpha amylases from a number of sources utilized alpha-maltosyl fluoride as a glycosyl donor and acceptor at high rates (approximately 10 to approximately 1550 mumol/min/mg of protein, for 30 mM substrate). All enzymes catalyzed conversion of this compound into maltooligosaccharides in preference to causing its hydrolysis. Maltotetraosyl flouride and maltooligosaccharides of d.p. 3 to 6+ accounted for 75--93% (by weight) of early reaction-products. At a late stage, the yield of maltooligosaccharides was 2--5 times that of maltose, with chains as long as 12 D-glucosyl residues formed by one amylase (from Asp. oryzae), which utilized alpha-maltosyl fluoride as a donor and as an acceptor at extremely high rates. These results indicate that alpha amylases have a substantial capacity for binding two molecules of this small substrate in a distinctive way, with the C--F glycosylic bond of one and the free C-4 hydroxyl group of the other located in the region of the enzyme's catalytic groups, therby favoring glycosylation of the suitably positioned acceptor over solvent water. Hydrolysis is assumed to prevail when only a single substrate molecule or segment binds to alpha amylase with a (1 linked to 4)-alpha-D-glucosidic linkage of glycosylic C--F bond positioned at the catalytic center. The present demonstration that glycosyl-transfer reactions can be dominantly expressed by alpha amylases, given an appropriate substrate, illustrates the inadequacy of the usual characterization of these enzymes as hydrolases that produce overwhelming hydrolysis of all substrates.