Ciba Foundation Symposium 72 - Sulphur in Biology

316 Pages·1980·5.649 MB·English

Sulphur in Biology
The Ciba Foundation for the promotion of international cooperation in medical and chemical research is
a scientific and educational charity established by CIBA Limited-now CIBA-GEIGY Limited-of Basle.
The Foundation operates independently in London under English trust law.
Ciba Foundation Symposia are published in collaboration with Excerpta Medica in Amsterdam.
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Sulphur in Biology
Ciba Foundation Symposium 72 (new series)
1980
Excerpta Medica
Amsterdam Oxford New York
Copyright 1980 Excerpta Medica
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ISBN Excerpta Medica 90 219 4078 7
ISBN ElseviedNorth-Holland 0 444 90108 6
Published in April 1980 by Excerpta Medica, P.O. Box 21 1, Amsterdam and
ElseviedNorth-Holland, Inc., 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017.
Suggested series entry for library catalogues: Ciba Foundation Symposia.
Suggested publisher’s entry for library catalogues: Excerpta Medica.
Ciba Foundation Symposium 72 (new series)
324 pages, 66 figures, 43 tables
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Symposium on Biology of Sulphur, Ciba Foundation, 1979.
Sulphur in biology.
(Ciba Foundation symposium; 72 (new ser.))
Bibliography: p.
Includes indexes.
1. Sulphur metabolism - Congresses. 1. Title.
11. Series: Ciba Foundation. Symposium; new ser., 72
QP535.SlS93 1979 574.1’9214 79-24939
ISBN 0-444-09108-6
Printed in The Netherlands by Casparie, Amsterdam
Contents
J. R. POSTGATE Introduction 1
DONOVAN P. KELLY The sulphur cycle: definition, mechanisms and dynamics 3
Discussion 13
PETER A. SEUBERT, PAMELA A. GRANT, ELIZABETH A. CHRISTIE, JOHN R. FARLEY and IRWIN
H. SEGEL Kinetic and chemical properties of ATP sulphurylase from Penicillium
chrysogenum 19
Discussion 43
JEROME A. SCHIFF Pathways of assimilatory sulphate reduction in plants and
microorganisms 49
Discussion 64
G. D. FAUQUE, L. L. BARTON and I. LE GALL Oxidative phosphorylation linked to the
dissimilatory reduction of elemental sulphur by Desulfovibrio 7 1
Discussion 79
NICHOLAS M. KREDICH, M. DANUTA HULANICKA and SCOTi- G. HALLQUIST Synthesis Of L-
cysteine in Salmonella typhimurium 87
Discussion 95
s. w. J. BRIGHT, P. J. LEA and B. J. MIFLIN The regulation of methionine biosynthesis
and metabolism in plants and bacteria 101
Discussion 1 14
JEAN L. JOHNSON and K. v. RAJAGOPALAN The oxidation of sulphite in animal systems
119
Discussion 129
ALTON MEISTER, OWEN w. GRIFFITH, ABRAHAM NOVOGRODSKY and SURESH s. TATE New
aspects of glutathione metabolism and translocation in mammals 135
Discussion 136
KENNETH s. DODGSON and FREDERICK A. ROSE Observations on the biological roles of
sulphatases 163
Discussion 173
V
VI CONTENTS
A. B. ROY Sulphatase A: an arylsulphatase and a glycosulphatase 177
Discussion 188
D. M. ZIECLER, M. w. DUFFEL and L. L. POULSEN Studies on the nature and regulation of
the cellular thiol : disulphide potential 191
Discussion 201
HAROLD E. SWAISGOOD and H. ROBERT HORTON Sulphydryl oxidase: oxidation of
sulphydryl groups and the formation of three-dimensional structure in proteins
205
Discussion 2 18
JEREMIAS H. R. KAGI, YUTAKA KOIIMA, MARGRIT M. KISSLING and KONRAD LERCH Metal-
lothionein: an exceptional metal thiolate protein 223
Discussion 233
s. HARVEY MUDD Diseases of sulphur metabolism: implications for the
methionine-homocysteine cycle, and vitamin responsiveness 239
Discussion 256
M. RECASENS and P. MANDEL Similarities between cysteinesulphinate transaminase
and aspartase aminotransferase 259
Discussion 269
GERALD E. GAULL and DAVID K. RASSIN Taurine in development and nutrition 271
Discussion 280
General Discussion
Rhodanese in thiobacilli and higher organisms 289
Methionine metabolism 290
Transport of sulphate and polythionates in bacteria and eukaryotes 292
Metabolism of insoluble mineral sulphides 294
Inborn errors of sulphate metabolism 295
Energy generation in sulphur metabolism 298
Sulphide oxidation in animal tissues 301
Iron-sulphur proteins and sulpholipids 302
Index of contributors 309
Subject index 3 11
Participants
Symposium on Biology of Sulphur, held at the Ciba Foundation, London, 24th-
26th April 1979
I. R. POSTGATE (Chairman) Unit of Nitrogen Fixation, University of Sussex,
Falmer, Brighton, Sussex, BN1 9RQ, UK
c. BRIERLEY The New Mexico Bureau of Mines, Socorro, New Mexico 87801, USA
s. w. I. BRIGHT Biochemistry Department, Rothamsted Experimental Station, Har-
penden, Hertfordshire, AL5 254, UK
F. CHATAGNER Laboratoire de Biochimie, 96 Boulevard Raspail, F-75006 Paris,
France
K. s. DODGSON Department of Biochemistry, University College, PO Box 78,
Cardiff, CF1 lXL, UK
w. A. HAMILTON Department of Microbiology, Marischal College, Aberdeen Uni-
versity, Aberdeen, Scotland, AB9 lAS, UK
J. R. IDLE Department of Biochemical Pharmacology, St Mary’s Hospital Medical
School, Norfolk Place, London W2 lPG, UK
I. L. JOHNSON Department of Biochemistry, Duke University Medical Center,
Durham, North Carolina 27710, USA
M. c. JONES-MORTIMER Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge,
Tennis Court Road, Cambridge, CB2 lQW, UK
I. H. R. KAGI Biochemisches Institut, University of Zurich, Zurichbergstrasse 4,
CH 8028 Zurich, Switzerland
D. P. KELLY Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Warwick,
Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK
N. M. KREDICH Department of Medicine, Division of Rheumatic & Genetic Diseases,
Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710, USA
VII
VIII PARTICIPANTS
I. LEGALL Laboratoire de Chimie Bacttrienne, CNRS, 3 1 Chemin Joseph-Aiguier,
13274 Marseilles - Cedex 2, France
A. MEISTER Department of Biochemistry, Cornell University Medical College, 1300
York Avenue, New York, New York 10021, USA
s. H. MUDD Laboratory of General and Comparative Biochemistry, National
Institute of Mental Health, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, Maryland 20205,
USA
D. K. RASSIN Department of Human Development and Nutrition, New York State
Institute for Basic Research in Mental Retardation, 1050 Forest Hill Road, Staten
Island, New York 10314, USA
M. RECASENS Centre de Neurochimie du CNRS, 1 1 rue Humann, 67085 Strasbourg
- Cedex, France
F. A. ROSE Department of Biochemistry, University College, PO Box 78, Cardiff,
CF1 IXL, UK
A. B. ROY Department of Physical Biochemistry, The John Curtin School of Medical
Research, Australian National University, PO Box 334, Canberra City, ACT
260 1, Australia
I. A. SCHIFF* Institute for Photobiology of Cells and Organelles, Brandeis Univer-
sity, Waltham, Massachusetts 02154, USA
I. H. SEGEL Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California,
Davis, California 95616, USA
H. E. SWAISGOOD Department of Food Science & Biochemistry, North Carolina State
University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27650, USA
F. R. WHATLEY Botany School, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford,
OX1 3RA. UK
D. M. ZIEGLER Department of Chemistry, Clayton Foundation Biochemical Institute,
The University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712, USA
Editors: KATHERINE ELLIOTT (Organizer) and JULIE WHELAN
* Contributed in absentia. because of illness.
Sulphur in Biologv
Ciba Foundation
Copyright 0 1980 Ciba Foundation
Introduction
J. R. POSTGATE
Unit of Nitrogen Fixation, University of Sussex. Brighton. Sussex, BNl 9RQ, UK
I may seem a strange choice for chairman of this symposium since I have not been
involved in sulphur research for the past seven years and my contribution, such as it
was, was made more than a decade ago. However, I am delighted to be back in the
intellectual environment of sulphur.
I would like to make one general point about the biology of sulphur. For the past
couple of decades I have been increasingly, and now almost exclusively, involved
with another element, nitrogen, and the reason that this happened is in part because
of its overriding importance in world food production. One result of this
importance is that a specialized international symposium on the subject of nitrogen
fixation is held every two years, and almost every international congress of
microbiology, biochemistry or botany has sections devoted to nitrogen
fixation. There are at least four national meetings every year devoted to nitrogen,
with particular emphasis on its fixation. Since 1960, the scientific world seems to
have blown its top on the subject of nitrogen. The consequences have been various:
sometimes they have been comic, as in some of the ludicrous grant proposals one
sees; sometimes they have been sad, because competitiveness in certain areas has
become almost counterproductive. But there can be no question that the rate of
advance of our knowledge of the nitrogen cycle and of nitrogen fixation in particular
has been dramatic, because people realized that if research was not done they would
not eat, or else their children and grandchildren would not eat.
In the same period there have been about six meetings devoted to the biology of
sulphur. Yet one has known for three decades that the gross national productivity
in any industrialized country is directly related to its consumption of the element
sulphur; that all the sulphur used is biogenic, having been formed largely in the
Permian Era; that it is effectively a reserve of fossil energy that we are now
consuming with the same abandon with which we consume oil, coal or natural gas;
and that therefore when these energy supplies run out the energy cost of making
0 Excerpta Medica 1980 1
Sulphur in biology
(Ciba Foundation Symposium 72)p I-2
2 J. R. POSTGATE
substitutes will go up and up. The analogy I am drawing here is that when
something is economically important, funds become available for research. It is
not an analogy that I would wish to push too far, and I would be the last to suggest that
research on the biology of sulphur should be determined by the international price of
sulphur. There was a period when this happened and the results to research were
disastrous. I do note with regret that the importance of sulphur, both economically
and in medicine and biochemistry, has not had the same pull in terms of research as
has the realization of the importance of nitrogen. We are, therefore, fortunate that
the Ciba Foundation has considered sulphur to be a subject worth serious
attention. This will do something to demonstrate that sulphur is a significant
research subject.
Turning to the programme, I am well aware of certain gaps, which is perhaps
inevitable with such a wide subject. As we shall hear, the biology of sulphur is
entirely dependent on the activities of microbes, but many important types will not be
covered. In particular, the photosynthetic sulphur bacteria will not be discussed as
such, nor the new species of sulphate-reducing bacteria. The ecology of the
sulfuretum (the ecosystem based on the sulphur cycle; see Postgate 1979) is not
overtly featured. In the area of biochemistry, the iron-sulphur proteins are major
terminal products of sulphur metabolism which do not feature in the formal
papers. We hope that participants will bring these topics into the discussions of the
subjects selected for major emphasis.
Reference
Postgate JR 1979 The sulphate-reducing bacteria. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge