Structural studies on aspartate aminotransferase from Escherichia coli. Covalent structure

The amino acid sequence of aspartate aminotransferase from Escherichia coli was established by sequence analysis and alignment of 39 tryptic peptides and 7 cyanogen bromide peptides. The total number of amino acid residues of the subunit was 396, and the molecular weight was calculated to be 43,573. A comparison of the primary structure of the E. coli enzyme with all known sequences of the two types of isoenzyme (mitochondrial and cytosolic enzymes) in vertebrates revealed that approximately 25% of all residues are invariant. The amino acid residues which were proposed from crystallographic studies on the vertebrate enzymes to be essential for the enzymic action are well conserved in the E. coli enzyme. The E. coli enzyme shows a similar degree of sequence homology to both the mitochondrial and cytosolic isoenzymes (close to 40%). The finding that the positions of deletions introduced into the sequence of E. coli enzyme to give the maximum homology agree well with those of the mitochondrial enzymes supports the endosymbiotic hypothesis of mitochondrial origin.