Enzyme Kinetics from Circular Dichroism of Insulin Reveals Mechanistic Insights into the Regulation of Insulin-degrading Enzyme

February 28, 2019

Title

Enzyme Kinetics from Circular Dichroism of Insulin Reveals Mechanistic Insights into the Regulation of Insulin-degrading Enzyme

Author

Valerie A. Ivancic, Claire A. Krasinski, Qiuchen Zheng, Rebecca J. Meservier, Donald E Spratt, Noel D. Lazo

Year

2018

Journal

Bioscience Reports

Abstract

Insulin-degrading enzyme (IDE) is a zinc metalloprotease that selectively degrades biologically important substrates associated with type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer's disease (AD). As such, IDE is an attractive target for therapeutic innovations. A major requirement is an understanding of how other molecules present in cells regulate the activity of the enzyme towards insulin, IDE's most important physiologically relevant substrate. Previous kinetic studies of the IDE-dependent degradation of insulin in the presence of potential regulators have used iodinated insulin, a chemical modification that has been shown to alter the biological and biochemical properties of insulin. Here, we present a novel kinetic assay that takes advantage of the loss of helical circular dichroic signals of insulin with IDE-dependent degradation. As proof of concept, the resulting Michaelis-Menten kinetic constants accurately predict the known regulation of IDE by adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Intriguingly, we found that when Mg2+ is present with ATP, the regulation is abolished. The implication of this result for the development of preventative and therapeutic strategies for AD is discussed. We anticipate that the new assay presented here will lead to the identification of other small molecules that regulate the activity of IDE towards insulin.

Instrument

J-815

Keywords

Circular dichroism, Secondary structure, Kinetics, Chemical stability, Biochemistry