Characterization of yeast deoxyhypusine synthase:: PKC-dependent phosphorylation in vitro and functional domain identification

The biosynthesis of hypusine [N-epsilon-(4-amino-2-hydroxybutyl)-lysine] occurs in the eIF-5A precursor protein through two step posttranslational modification involving deoxyhypusine synthase which catalyzes transfer of the butylamine moiety of spermidine to the E-amino group of a designated lysine residue and subsequent hydroxylation of this intermediate. This enzyme is exclusively required for cell viability and growth of yeast (Park, M.H. et al., J. Biol. Chem. 273: 1677-1683, 1998). In an effort to understand structure-function relationship of deoxyhypusine synthase, posttranslational modification(s) of the enzyme by protein kinases were carried out for a possible cellular modulation of this enzyme. And also twelve deletion mutants were constructed, expressed in E. coli system, and enzyme activities were examined. The results showed that deoxyhypusine synthase was phosphorylated by PKC in vitro but not by p56(lck) and p60(c-src). Treatment with PMA specifically increased the relative phosphorylation of the enzyme supporting PKC was involved. Phosphoamino acid analysis of this enzyme revealed that deoxyhypusine synthase is mostly phosphorylated on serine residue and weakly on threonine. Removal of Met(1)-Glu(10) (Delta Met(1)-Glu(10)) residues from amino terminal showed no effect on the catalytic activity but further deletion (Delta Met(1)-Ser(20)) caused loss of enzyme activity. The enzyme with internal deletion, Delta Gln(197)-Asn(212) (residues not present in the human enzyme) was found to be inactive. Removal of 5 residues from carboxyl terminal, Delta Lys(383)-Asn(387), retained only slight activity. These results suggested that deoxyhypusine synthase is substrate for PKC dependent phosphorylation and requires most of the polypeptide chains for enzyme activity except the first 15 residues of N-terminal despite of N- and C-terminal residues of the enzyme consist of variable regions.