A kinetic study of the interaction between mitochondrial F1 adenosine triphosphatase and adenylyl imidodiphosphate and guanylyl imidodiphosphate.

1. The presence of 5'-adenylyl imidodiphosphate, a non-hydrolysable analogue of ATP, in the solution used to assay the soluble bovine heart mitochondrial F1-ATPase produced slow competitive inhibition. If the enzyme was preincubated with the inhibitor before the substrate, MgATP, was added, a partial re-activation was obtained. 2. The slow inhibitory process showed first-order rate kinetics, and therefore it seems likely that a conformational change of the enzyme occurs following a faster binding process. A reaction scheme is suggested. At pH 7.8 the rate constant for the inhibition reaction was calculated to be 6.7 X 10(-2)s-1 and that for the re-activation 3.8 X 10(-3)s-1, with Keq. 17.6, indicating that the inhibited enzyme-inhibitor complex will be favoured over the non-inhibited enzyme-inhibitor complex. 3. The presence of 5'-guanylyl imidodiphosphate in the solution used to assay F1-ATPase produced rapid competitive inhibition, which was then slowly reversed until a steady state was reached. This might be explained by a rapid but reversible shift of the inhibition pathway induced by this non-hydrolysable analogue of ATP. A complex rate constant for the displacement of the inhibitor by the substrate of 7.6 X 10(-3)s-1 was calculated. 4. The results are discussed in the light of other recent observations about binding of 5'-adenylyl imidodiphosphate to F1-ATPase and with reference to the binding-site-change mechanism of hydrolysis of ATP by F1-ATPase.