The Urea Cycle

The Urea Cycle

Earlier it was noted that kidney glutaminase was responsible for converting excess glutamine from the liver to urine ammonium. However, about 80% of the excreted nitrogen is in the form of urea which is also largely made in the liver, in a series of reactions that are distributed between the mitochondrial matrix and the cytosol. The series of reactions that form urea is known as the Urea Cycle or the Krebs-Henseleit Cycle.

The essential features of the urea cycle reactions and their metabolic regulation are as follows: Arginine from the diet or from protein breakdown is cleaved by the cytosolic enzyme arginase, generating urea and ornithine. In subsequent reactions of the urea cycle a new urea residue is built on the ornithine, regenerating arginine and perpetuating the cycle.

Ornithine arising in the cytosol is transported to the mitochondrial matrix, where ornithine transcabamoylase catalyzes the condensation of ornithine with carbamoyl phosphate, producing citrulline. The energy for the reaction is provided by the high-energy anhydride of carbamoyl phosphate. The product, citrulline, is then transported to the cytosol, where the remaining reactions of the cycle take place.

The synthesis of citrulline requires a prior activation of carbon and nitrogen as carbamoyl phosphate (CP). The activation step requires 2 equivalents of ATP and the mitochondrial matrix enzyme carbamoyl phosphate synthetase-I (CPS-I). There are two CP synthetases: a mitochondrial enzyme, CPS-I, which forms CP destined for inclusion in the urea cycle, and a cytosolic CP synthatase (CPS-II), which is involved in pyrimidine nucleotide biosynthesis. CPS-I is positively regulated by the allosteric effector N-acetyl-glutamate, while the cytosolic enzyme is acetylglutamate independent.

In a 2-step reaction, catalyzed by cytosolic argininosuccinate synthetase, citrulline and aspartate are condensed to form argininosuccinate. The reaction involves the addition of AMP (from ATP) to the amido carbonyl of citrulline, forming an activated intermediate on the enzyme surface (AMP-citrulline), and the subsequent addition of aspartate to form argininosuccinate.

Arginine and fumarate are produced from argininosuccinate by the cytosolic enzyme argininosuccinate lyase (also called argininosuccinase). In the final step of the cycle arginase cleaves urea from aspartate, regenerating cytosolic ornithine, which can be transported to the mitochondrial matrix for another round of urea synthesis. The fumarate, generated via the action of arginiosuccinate lyase, is reconverted to aspartate for use in the argininosuccinate synthetase reaction. This occurs through the actions of cytosolic versions of the TCA cycle enzymes, fumarase (which yields malate) and malate dehydrogenase (which yields oxaloacetate). The oxaloacetate is then transaminated to aspartate by AST.

Beginning and ending with ornithine, the reactions of the cycle consumes 3 equivalents of ATP and a total of 4 high-energy nucleotide phosphates. Urea is the only new compound generated by the cycle; all other intermediates and reactants are recycled. The energy consumed in the production of urea is more than recovered by the release of energy formed during the synthesis of the urea cycle intermediates. Ammonia released during the glutamate dehydrogenase reaction is coupled to the formation of NADH. In addition, when fumarate is converted back to aspartate, the malate dehydrogenase reaction used to convert malate to oxaloacetate generates a mole of NADH. These two moles of NADH, thus, are oxidized in the mitochondria yielding 6 moles of ATP.