Enhancement of Aminoacylase Activity by Sodium Citrate

Kidney and other tissues of animals and humans have a high concentration of citrate which is an important intermediate substance in the citrate cycle. Citrate may play an important physiological role in metabolism. In this paper, we studied the interaction of the sodium salt of citrate with aminoacylase which is an important enzyme in metabolism and found sodium citrate can enhance the activity of aminoacylase. The maximum enzyme activity induced by sodium citrate increased approximately 3 folds over the enzyme activity without sodium citrate. The initial reaction rates for different concentrations of sodium citrate were obtained, showing that sodium citrate is a non-competitive activator. The result of the ANS binding fluorescence measurements for aminoacylase indicated that increasing sodium citrate concentrations markedly increased the ANS binding fluorescence with a blue shift of the emission spectra peak. This suggests the formation of more hydrophobic regions. Aggregates formed quickly when aminoacylase was incubated with sodium citrate (0.3 mol/L) and guanidinium chloride (0-3.5 mol/L). Aminoacylase lost enzyme activity in the guanidinium chloride more quickly in the presence of sodium citrate than in the absence of sodium citrate. The intrinsic fluorescence emission intensity decreased more quickly and the red shift of the emission spectra peak was larger than that without sodium citrate