Abstract
Rabbit muscle phosphoglucomutase converts alpha-D-glucose 1-[(S)-16O,17O,18O]phosphate into D-glucose 6-[16O,17O,18O]phosphate, which is shown by 31P n.m.r. spectroscopy, after cyclization and methylation, to have the (S)-configuration at the phosphorus atom. Since phosphoglucomutase is known to catalyse phosphoryl transfer by way of a phospho-enzyme intermediate, and since individual phosphoryl-transfer steps appear in general to occur with inversion of configuration, this observation is most simply interpreted in terms of a double-displacement mechanism with two phosphoryl-transfer steps.