MEPS 550:83-99 (2016)  -  DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/meps11700

ABSTRACT: NH₄⁺ production in 2 species of marine zooplankton was predicted from glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) activity using general bisubstrate enzyme kinetics during a period of starvation. In addition to starvation, we studied the effect of food quality on both NH₄⁺ excretion rates (RNH₄⁺) and the biochemical composition of zooplankton. The mathematical function used here relies on Michaelis-Menten principles and assumes that the synthesis of NH₄⁺ is controlled mainly by the maximum velocity of GDH, the intracellular pool of substrates and the kinetic constants. This simple model described reasonably well the shifts in RNH₄⁺ that occurred within the time course of starvation in both groups of zooplankton. The calculated RNH₄⁺, however, underestimated the actual RNH₄⁺. Furthermore, we used single substrate kinetics to address the magnitude of either the allosteric inhibition or the activation by purine nucleotides. We found that allosterism is more important in healthy physiological conditions. Overall, the use of first-principles kinetics seems to provide better estimates of RNH₄⁺ than applying a general GDH/RNH₄⁺ ratio on the measurements of GDH; therefore, its application may be of potential interest when studying zooplankton RNH₄⁺ in heterogeneous marine ecosystems.

KEY WORDS: Glutamate dehydrogenase · NH₄⁺ excretion · Biochemical kinetics · Brachionus plicatilis · Leptomysis lingvura