Activities and Structure-Function Analysis of Fission Yeast Inositol Pyrophosphate (IPP) Kinase-Pyrophosphatase Asp1 and Its Impact on Regulation of pho1 Gene Expression

Inositol pyrophosphates (IPPs) are signaling molecules that regulate cellular phosphate homeostasis in diverse eukaryal taxa. In fission yeast, mutations that increase 1,5-IP(8) derepress the PHO regulon while mutations that ablate IP(8) synthesis are PHO hyper-repressive. Fission yeast Asp1, the principal agent of 1,5-IP(8) dynamics, is a bifunctional enzyme composed of an N-terminal IPP kinase domain and a C-terminal IPP pyrophosphatase domain. Here we conducted a biochemical characterization and mutational analysis of the autonomous Asp1 kinase domain (aa 1–385). Reaction of Asp1 kinase with IP(6) and ATP resulted in both IP(6) phosphorylation to 1-IP(7) and hydrolysis of the ATP γ-phosphate, with near-equal partitioning between productive 1-IP(7) synthesis and unproductive ATP hydrolysis under optimal kinase conditions. By contrast, reaction of Asp1 kinase with 5-IP(7) is 22-fold faster than with IP(6) and is strongly biased in favor of IP(8) synthesis versus ATP hydrolysis. Alanine scanning identified essential constituents of the active site. We deployed the Ala mutants to show that derepression of pho1 expression correlated with Asp1’s kinase activity. In the case of full-length Asp1, the activity of the C-terminal pyrophosphatase domain stifled net phosphorylation of the 1-position during reaction of Asp1 with ATP and either IP(6) or 5-IP(7). We report that inorganic phosphate is a concentration-dependent enabler of net IP(8) synthesis by full-length Asp1 in vitro, by virtue of its antagonism of IP(8) turnover.