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Several SH group modifying chemicals were used to characterize the eight cysteine residues of cabbage PLD. 5,5’-dithiobis(2-nitrobenzoate)(DTNB) was used to titrate the SH group of cysteine residues . Based on the optical density at 412nm due to the reduced DTNB, 4 SH groups are found to be present in a native PLD while 8 SH groups in the denatured PLD whose tertiary structure was perturbed by 8M urea. The results imply that among the 8 cysteine residues of PLD, the half(4) are exposed on the surface whereas the other half are present at the interior of the enzyme tertiary structure. The PLD was inactivated by SH modifying reagents such as p-chloromercuribenzoate(PCMB), iodoacetate, iodoacetamide, and N-ethylmaleimide. At the addition of dithiothreitol(DTT) only the PCMB inhibited PLD activity was recovered reversibly. The micro-environment of the exposed SH group of cysteine residues was examined with various disulfide compounds with different functional groups and we found that anionic or neutral disulfides appear to be more effective than the positively charged cystamine for inactivating the PLD activity. The effect of redox state of cysteine residues on the PLD activity was further explored with H2O2. The oxidation of SH groups by H2O2 inhibited the PLD activity more than 70%, which was mostly recovered by DTT. From these results, we could confirm chemically that all the cysteine residues of PLD are present as in their reduced SH forms and the 4 SH groups exposed on the surface of the enzyme may play important roles in the regulation of PLD activity.
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