Effect of some divalent metal cations on phospholipase C from Bacillus cereus

Incubation of phospholipase C from Bacillus cereus with certain divalent metal cations caused enzyme inactivation with Cu(II) being particularly effective. The inactivation arose from the reversible exchange of Zn(II) in the enzyme with the metal cations. Both zinc atoms in the enzyme exchanged rapidly with Cu(II) whereas only one exchanged spontaneously with Co(II). With lecithin substrates, CoZn-phospholipase C had a specific activity of 3.6-11.3% of that of ZnZn-phospholipase C, whereas the CoCo-enzyme was less than 1% active relative to the native enzyme. The CoZn-enzyme had the same Km value for dihexanoyllecithin as had the native enzyme, but the Vm value was markedly lower. ZnZn-, CoZn- and CoCo-phospholipase C all had very low activities towards sphingomyelin micelles, although for the CoCo-enzyme, the sphingomyelinase activity was 4-7-fold greater than for the native enzyme.