The Journal of Biological Chemistry

Native sodium and potassium adenosine triphosphatase from guinea pig kidney accepted a phosphate group from radioactive inorganic phosphate to form an acyl phosphate bond at the active site in the presence or absence of sodium ion. Magnesium ion was always required. In the presence of sodium ion and absence of adenosine triphosphate, there was no phosphorylation by inorganic phosphate. Addition of unlabeled adenosine triphosphate produced a potassiumsensitive phosphoenzyme which exchanged its phosphategroup with radioactive inorganic phosphate. The dephosphoenzyme was an intermediate in this exchange. The rate constant for dephosphorylation was about 0.05 per second. Addition of rubidium ion, a congener of potassium ion, to the potassium-sensitive phosphoenzyme produced a phosphoenzyme labeled from inorganic phosphate with a corresponding rate constant of 0.26 per s. This was a rubidiumcomplexed phosphoenzyme. Addition of magnesium ion to potassium-sensitive phosphoenzyme converted it into insensitive phosphoenzyme, the splitting of which was not accelerated by potassium ion or by adenosine diphosphate. Its rate constant was 0.07 per s. In the absence of sodium ion and adenosine triphosphate, inorganic phosphate was incorporated directly into a similar insensitive phosphoenzyme. In the presence of potassium ion or rubidium ion, inorganic phosphate was incorporated into a potassium-complexed or rubidium-complexed phosphoenzyme which exchanged 32P with inorganic phosphate completely in less than 3 s. Incorporation of inorganic phosphate into a complex of the enzyme with the inhibitor, ouabain, is already described in the literature. Its rate constant was about 0.02 per s. Thus there appear to be at least four reactive states of the phosphoenzyme which equilibrate measurably with inorganic phosphate, namely, potassium-sensitive phosphoenzyme,