Fluorescently Labelled ATP Analogues for Direct Monitoring of Ubiquitin Activation

Simple and robust assays to monitor enzymatic ATP cleavage with high efficiency in real‐time are scarce. To address this shortcoming, we developed fluorescently labelled adenosine tri‐, tetra‐ and pentaphosphate analogues of ATP. The novel ATP analogues bear — in contrast to earlier reports — only a single acridone‐based dye at the terminal phosphate group. The dye's fluorescence is quenched by the adenine component of the ATP analogue and is restored upon cleavage of the phosphate chain and dissociation of the dye from the adenosine moiety. Thereby the activity of ATP‐cleaving enzymes can be followed in real‐time. We demonstrate this proficiency for ubiquitin activation by the ubiquitin‐activating enzymes UBA1 and UBA6 which represents the first step in an enzymatic cascade leading to the covalent attachment of ubiquitin to substrate proteins, a process that is highly conserved from yeast to humans. We found that the efficiency to serve as cofactor for UBA1/UBA6 very much depends on the length of the phosphate chain of the ATP analogue: triphosphates are used poorly while pentaphosphates are most efficiently processed. Notably, the novel pentaphosphate‐harbouring ATP analogue supersedes the efficiency of recently reported dual‐dye labelled analogues and thus, is a promising candidate for broad applications.