Protein disulfide isomerase (PDI), a foldase of the endoplasmic recticulum, is a multifunctional protein that catalyzes the formation and isomerization of disulfide bonds during protein folding. The wild-type protein contains two redox active thiol/disulfide sites near the N and C terminus that are homologous to the redox center of thioredoxin. Using site-directed mutagenesis, both cysteines of each of the thioredoxin-like centers, (C35S,C38S) and (C379S,C382S) were replaced by serines. In addition, a mutant PDI was constructed with all four of the active cysteines mutated to serine (C35S,C38S,C379S,C382S). The activity of the wild-type and mutant proteins in the oxidative renaturation of reduced, denatured RNase was analyzed over a wide range of RNase concentrations, PDI concentrations, and glutathione redox buffers compositions. All mutants, including the construct with no functional thioredoxin centers, have measurable disulfide isomerase activity. Both of the thioredoxin-like sites contribute some to apparent steady-state binding (Km) and catalysis at saturating substrate concentrations (kcat); however, their contributions are not equivalent. At saturating concentrations of RNase, the mutant with an inactivated C-terminal active site (kcat = 0.72 +/- 0.06 min-1) retains near wild-type activity (kcat = 0.76 +/- 0.02 min-1), while the N-terminal mutant exhibits a significantly lower kcat (0.24 +/- 0.01 min-1). The Km for RNase is elevated for the C-terminal mutant (Km = 29 +/- 4 microM) while the N-terminal mutant (Km = 7.1 +/- 1.1 microM) exhibits a wild-type Km (6.9 +/- 0.8 microM). The larger Km for the C-terminal mutant (4.2 times wild-type) and the lower kcat of N-terminal mutant (32% of wild-type) suggest that the C-terminal region contributes more to apparent steady-state substrate binding, and the N-terminal region contributes more to catalysis at saturating concentrations of substrate. Despite their complementary roles in catalysis, the thioredoxin-like centers exhibit the same dependence on the glutathione redox buffer composition as evidenced by the equivalent K(ox) values for the wild-type (47 +/- 1 microM), N-terminal mutant (43 +/- 3 microM), and C-terminal mutant (44 +/- 1 microM). The mutant with both thioredoxin sites mutated displays a low but detectable level of disulfide-isomerase activity (0.5% of wild-type) that can be observed at high PDI concentrations. At high RNase concentrations (> or = 26 microM), wild-type PDI and all of the mutants catalyze intermolecular RNase aggregation in a nucleation growth reaction that is first order in PDI but fourth order with respect to RNase.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)