Abstract
Several pyridoxal-phosphate-dependent enzymes can convert the bound cofactor to pyridoxamine phosphate. This conversion may be an obligatory part of the normal catalytic sequence, as with transaminases, or may be an abnormal path, inactivating the enzyme. This conversion requires protonation of the C(4)' carbon of the cofactor, which has now been shown to proceed stereospecifically and with the same absolute stereochemistry in seven quite different pyridoxal-phosphate enzymes. We report on one of these, tryptophan synthase B protein. This regularity in protonation stereochemistry suggests a remarkable regularity in the geometry of cofactor binding to the apoenzyme. This regularity is interpreted as evidence for the evolution of this entire family of enzymes from a common progenitor which, through the course of evolution, could not invert its original, arbitrary binding stereochemistry without passing through catalytically inactive conformations.