Masateru Shin

Heterogeneity of adrenocortical ferredoxin

Bovine adrenocortical ferredoxin (adreno‐ferredoxin) was purified from adrenocortical mitochondria by an improved method that included hydrophobic chromatography on Toyopearl gels. The purified ferredoxin was electrophoretically homogeneous. It was further separated into five fractions by hydrophobic chromatography on a TSK‐gel phenyl‐5PW column with a high‐pressure liquid chromatography system. The properties of the three main fractions were examined. The fractions had identical absorption spectra and almost the same activity in an NADPH‐cytochrome c reducing system. Their amino‐terminal sequences all corresponded to the reported sequence, but the carboxyl‐terminal residues were glycine or serine, not alanine as reported. These results indicate that these adreno‐ferredoxins had additional amino acid residues at the carboxyl end. It seems that adreno‐ferredoxin extracted from mitochondria undergoes proteolytic attack during purification to become heterogeneous.

Isolation and purification of mature bovine adrenocortical ferredoxin with an elongated carboxyl end

Mature bovine adrenocortical ferredoxin (adreno-ferredoxin) was extracted from fresh adrenal glands at pH 9.0. Extraction and purification at this alkaline pH protected the mature adreno-ferredoxin molecule from proteolytic degradation. The mature adreno-ferredoxin was extensively purified by a rapid procedure including two kinds of column chromatography, hydrophobic and ion exchange. The purified adreno-ferredoxin was homogeneous on the basis of two HPLC analyses, hydrophobic and ion exchange, and had the highest purity so far reported. Then it was digested by trypsin and the carboxyl-terminal peptide was isolated from the tryptic digest by a novel column chromatographic method using a cation-exchange HPLC column, TSK-gel SP-5PW. The carboxyl-terminal amino acid was isoleucine, so the adreno-ferredoxin had 127 amino acid residues, the longest polypeptide so far determined chemically for bovine adreno-ferredoxin. Only Glu-128 was lacking within the carboxyl-terminal elongated peptide that was found by nucleotide sequencing of the adreno-ferredoxin gene. There was no evidence obtained on whether the deletion of Glu-128 was due to so-called carboxyl-terminal processing or to proteolytic degradation during storage and purification.

Butyl-Toyopearl 650 as a new hydrophobic adsorbent for water-soluble enzyme proteins

Butyl-Toyopearl 650, a butyl derivative of Toyopearl HW-65, was synthesized for use in hydrophobic chromatography. Water-soluble enzyme proteins were adsorbed on butyl-Toyopearl 650 in the presence of ammonium sulfate and eluted easily in the absence of the salt. Cytochrome c, myoglobin, and chymotrypsinogen A were successfully separated on a butyl-Toyopearl 650 column in order of their individual hydrophobicity by decreasing the concentration of ammonium sulfate contained in the buffer eluant. Based on these results, the use of butyl-Toyopearl 650 is demonstrated for the hydrophobic separation of water-soluble enzyme proteins.

Evidence from high-pressure liquid chromatography for the existence of two ferredoxins in plants

Crude ferredoxin preparations were obtained from blue-green algae, green algae, ferns, and higher plants. We analyzed the preparations by high-pressure liquid chromatography using two different types of columns, a hydrophobic phenyl-5PW column and an ion-exchange DEAE-5PW column. Two ferredoxins were detected in all plants analyzed. The ferredoxins from some plants were separated by use of both columns and those from others were separated by one of the two columns. Thus, there were three possible ways in which pairs of ferredoxins from a single species of plant could be separated. We suspect that there are two different ferredoxins in most if not all species of plants.

The reconstituted NADP photoreducing system by rebinding of the large form of ferredoxin-NADP reductase to depleted thylakoid membranes☆

The large form of ferredoxin-NADP reductase (FNR-L) was prepared by reassociating the small form of the enzyme (FNR-S) and connectein isolated from spinach leaves. The re-formed FNR-L could be rebound to depleted thylakoids from which most of the built-in FNR-L had been extracted. This rebinding of FNR-L brought about good restoration of the diminished NADP photoreducing activity of depleted thylakoids. Although rebinding of FNR-S to the depleted thylakoids took place with or without connectein, restoration of the NADP photoreducing activity required involvement of connectein. It becomes clear that involvement of connectein in the binding of FNR to thylakoids is indispensable for giving the physiological function of NADP photoreducing activity to the flavin enzyme on the surface of thylakoid membranes. It is most likely that FNR-L is the functional entity at the final step of the photosynthetic electron transport system in chloroplasts.

Immobilized ferredoxins for affinity chromatography of ferredoxin-dependent enzymes

An immobilized ferredoxin more stable than the conventional immobilized spinach ferrodoxin was prepared by reacting CNBr-Sepharose with ferredoxins isolated from barley and Synechococcus vulcanus, a thermophilic blue-green alga. The dissociation constants of immobilized ferredoxin from spinach, barley and S. vulcanus for spinach ferredoxin-NADP reductase were 0.922, 2.505 and 5.209 microM, respectively, whereas those for barley ferredoxin-NADP reductase were 1.159, 0.579 and 2.851 microM, respectively. The order of stability was S. vulcanus greater than barley greater than spinach. The immobilized ferredoxin was applied to the simultaneous detection of ferredoxin-dependent enzymes in spinach chloroplasts. Over 20 polypeptides were detected. Synechococcus ferredoxin could also be immobilized on a Toyopearl gel and repeatedly used in an automated high-performance liquid chromatographic system.

Mature ferredoxin-NADP reductase with a glutaminyl residue at N-terminus from spinach chloroplasts

When 35%-acetone extract of spinach chloroplasts was separated by SDS-PAGE, ferredoxin-NADP reductase (FNR) appeared as a single band at a molecular mass of 35 kDa. After the polypeptides on the SDS-PAGE plate were electroblotted onto PVDF membrane, the FNR band was cut out and analyzed for N-terminal structure in a gas-phase protein sequencer. Two different FNR peptides were identified: one with glutamine at its N-terminus (Gln-FNR) and the other with γ-pyroglutamic acid (<Glu-FNR). Next, tightly bound FNR (tFNR) fraction was extracted from chloroplasts with their loosely bound FNR (lFNR) fraction removed in advance. The tFNR fraction contained Gln-FNR only. The Gln-FNR could be highly purified by affinity chromatography using a ferredoxin column. The purified Gln-FNR was digested with arginyl endopeptidase for peptide mapping and partial sequence analysis. Primary structure of Gln-FNR differed from that of <Glu-FNR previously reported by Karplus et al. (1984) only in that it has an unblocked N-terminus. Highly purified Gln-FNR gave a molecular mass of 35 kDa in SDS-PAGE analysis, but its apparent molecular mass was estimated to be 38.5 kDa by gel-filtration HPLC analysis. This larger apparent molecular mass of Gln-FNR could be ascribed to its N-terminal moiety with around 15 amino acid residues protruding outside of a globular FNR molecule.

Further characterization of Nostoc verrucosum ferredoxins.

Nostoc verrucosum ferredoxins Fd I and Fd II were found to have different amino acid compositions. Fd I had 98 amino acid residues of Trpo, Lys4, His1, Arg1, Asp14, Thr8, Ser6, Glu14, Pro4, Gly7, Ala10, Cys4, Val5, Met0, Ile6, Leu8, Tyr5, Phe1 while Fd II had 99 residues of Trp1, Lys4, His1, Arg1, Asp18, Thr7, Ser6, Glu14, Pros, Gly5, Ala6, Gys5, Val6, Met1, Ile6, Leu8, Tyr4,Phe1. From the amino acid compositions, molecular weights were calculated to be about 10,500 for Fd I and 10,700 for Fd II. The amino terminals of both Fd I and Fd II were alanine. The carboxyl terminal sequence of Fd I was -Glu-Leu-Tyr and that of Fd II was -Glu-(Ser, Ala)-Leu-Ala. Fd I was more resistant against heat denaturation than Fd II.