Kinetic studies on muscle glycogen synthase.

Using the I form of rabbit muscle glycogen synthase essentially free of glycogen, the kinetics and mechanism of action was investigated. No evidence for an exchange between [14C]UDP and UDP-glucose was found. The bisubstrate kinetics of the enzyme for UDP-glucose and glycogen, as well as for UDP-glucose and maltose, was determined. An intersecting pattern in the double reciprocal plot (velocity versus substrate concentration) suggestive of a sequential mechanism (ordered or random) was found in all cases. The K-m for UDP-glucose (45 to 48 mM) was the same with either maltose or glycogen as acceptor. The K-m for maltose (230 mM) and for glycogen (1.5 mug/ml) differed.