Properties of the cold-labile NAD(+)-specific glutamate dehydrogenase from Bacillus cereus DSM 31

Nicotinamide-adenine-dinucleotide-specific glutamate dehydrogenase (NAD-GDH; EC 1.4.1.3) from Bacillus cereus DSM 31 was enriched 260-fold. The molecular mass was determined by gel filtration to be 270 kDa (+/- 25 kDa). The enzyme was highly specific for the coenzyme NAD(H) and catalysed both the formation and the oxidation of glutamate. Apparent Km values of 7.7 mM for glutamate and 0.56 mM for NAD+ during oxidative deamination were measured. Both in crude cell-free extracts and in enriched preparations the enzyme was extremely unstable, especially at low temperatures. The loss of activity in the cold was found to be due to the dissociation of the holoenzyme into catalytically inactive subunits of molecular mass 48 kDa (+/- 5 kDa), indicating that the native enzyme has a hexameric structure. The activity was restored under certain conditions, and no instability of the enzyme in the cold was observed in undisrupted cells.