2-Methylacetoacetyl-coenzyme A reductase from Ascaris muscle: purification and properties

2-Methylacetoacetyl-CoA and 3-keto-2-methyl pentanoyl-CoA have been proposed to be intermediates in the synthesis of 2-methylbutyrate and 2-methylvalerate, respectively, by Ascaris lumbricoides muscle. These volatile acids are major fermentation products of Ascaris metabolism. 2-Methylacetoacetyl-CoA reductase has been purified 532-fold from Ascaris muscle to yield a homogeneous preparation which contained a single protein species as observed on discontinuous polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate. The purification procedure utilized subcellular fractionation, affinity chromatography on NAD+ agarose, and ion-exchange chromatography on DEAE-cellulose. A constant activity ratio for ethyl 2-methylacetoacetate and acetoacetyl-CoA was observed during purification, indicating that the same enzyme catalyzed both reactions. In addition, the purified protein catalyzed the NADH-dependent reduction of ethyl-3-keto-2-methyl pentanoate at essentially the same rate as it did ethyl 2-methylacetoacetate. The purified enzyme is a basic protein with an isoelectric point of 8.45 at 4 degrees C. The molecular weight of the native protein (Mr = 64,000 by exclusion chromatography) and the size of the subunit (Mr = 30,000 by dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide electrophoresis) indicate that the enzyme is composed of two subunits of the same molecular weight. Substrate-specificity studies, undertaken with the purified protein, demonstrated that the ethyl esters can substitute for the coenzyme A derivatives but this substitution results in an active substrate only when a branched 2-methyl group is present. The straight-chain ethyl ester is inactive. Kinetic constants for the substrates and nucleotides were determined. The role of the CoA esters as the physiological substrates for the Ascaris enzyme is substantiated. When assayed in the reductive direction with ethyl 2-methylacetoacetate as substrate, the activity of the purified enzyme was inhibited not only by coenzyme A as previously reported, but also by acetyl-CoA. The physiological implications of these inhibitions are discussed.