Trehalose counteracts the dissociation of tetrameric rabbit lactate dehydrogenase induced by acidic pH conditions

The lactate dehydrogenase from rabbit skeletal muscle (rbLDH) is a tetrameric enzyme, known to undergo dissociation when exposed to acidic pH conditions. Moreover, it should be mentioned that this dissociation translates into a pronounced loss of enzyme activity. Notably, among the compounds able to stabilize proteins and enzymes, the disaccharide trehalose represents an outperformer. In particular, trehalose was shown to efficiently counteract quite a number of physical and chemical agents inducing protein denaturation. However, no information is available on the effect, if any, exerted by trehalose against the dissociation of protein oligomers. Accordingly, we thought it of interest to investigate whether this disaccharide is competent in preventing the dissociation of rbLDH induced by acidic pH conditions. Further, we compared the action of trehalose with the effects triggered by maltose and cellobiose. Surprisingly, both these disaccharides enhanced the dissociation of rbLDH, with maltose being responsible for a major effect when compared to cellobiose. On the contrary, trehalose was effective in preventing enzyme dissociation, as revealed by activity assays and by Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) experiments. Moreover, we detected a significant decrease of both K_0.5 and V_max when the rbLDH activity was tested (at pH 7.5 and 6.5) as a function of pyruvate concentration in the presence of trehalose. Further, we found that trehalose induces a remarkable increase of V_max when the enzyme is exposed to pH 5. Overall, our observations suggest that trehalose triggers conformational rearrangements of tetrameric rbLDH mirrored by resistance to dissociation and peculiar catalytic features.