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A Oplatka

Publications and source records attributed to A Oplatka.

15 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1979

Rabbit skeletal muscle F-actin can be stable at low ionic strength, provided trace amounts of Ca2+ are absent.

Addition of low concentrations (0.2--2.0 mM) of EGTA to rabbit skeletal muscle G-actin in the presence of ATP caused increase in viscosity. The effect is probably due to chelation of Ca2+. EGTA-polymerized actin was sedimented in the ultracentrifuge as a pellet which could be depolymerized in the presence of Ca2+ and then repolymerized. Electron microscopy indicated that formation of filamentous actin which appears to be somewhat more flexible than F-actin obtained by polymerization with KCl. The EGTA-polymerized actin was dissociated by DNAase I faster than KCl-polymerized actin. F-Actin can thus be stable also in very low ionic strength media if Ca2+ is removed whereas for G-actin to be the only form of the protein in such media, micromolar concentrations of Ca2+ must be present.

Actins↗
PubMed1979

Effect of modulators of cytoskeletal function on desensitization and recovery of PGE2-responsive ovarian adenylate cyclase.

Exposure of cultured Graafian follicles to PGE2 for 20 h resulted in a loss of the cyclic AMP response to fresh hormone. This desensitization was prevented by addition to the medium of D2O (25--50%) or Li+ (0.6--6 mM), agents believed to stabilize microtubules, as well as by phalloidin (1.0--10 microM), believed to stabilize the polymerized state of actin, in a dose-dependent manner. The spontaneous recovery of responsiveness to PGE2 upon incubation of refractory follicles for 6 h in hormone-free medium was prevented by addition to the medium of cytochalasin B (CB; 3 microgram/ml) or of the actin-binding myosin subfragment HMM S-1 (80 microgram/ml) or of anti-actin serum; viz. by agents likely to interfere with microfilament function. D2O (50%) caused morphological damage to the inner layer of the membrana granulosa and severe depression of protein synthesis. The other drugs used (phalloidin, LiCl and cytochalasin B) had no such effects. Resensitization of refractory follicles was also prevented by cycloheximide (10 micrograms/ml) and by actinomycin D (10 micrograms/ml). It is speculated that the recovery process may involve the insertion of a newly synthesized protein, such as PG-receptor, into the membrane by a mechanism dependent on microfilament action. These findings provide suggestive evidence for the hypothesis that cytoskeletal elements associated with the cell membrane take part in the modulation of the adenylate cyclase response to hormones.

Actins↗
PubMed1977

A study of the dynamic properties of actomyosin systems by quasi-elastic light scattering.

A laser light source and a digital autocorrelator were employed in the study of the molecular dyanmics of acto-heavy meromyosin during the splitting of ATP. Low protein concentrations were used, so that molecular and not gel properties were evident. The addition of Mg2+ to acto-heavy meromyosin solutions in the presence of ATP caused a marked widening of the spectrum at high scattering angles. No such change was observed when chemically inactivated heavy meromyosin was used when actin was cross-linked or when the proteins were in a high ionic strength solution. The data can be interpreted in terms of pronounced change in flexibility of acto-heavy meromyosin induced by active mechanochemical coupling.

Actins↗
PubMed1976

Comparative studies on amino and thiol groups in myosins from different sources.

Myosins from rabbit white and red skeletal, rabbit heart, fish skeletal and chicken gizzard muscles, as well as from human platelets were subjected to trinitrophenylation by trinitrobenzene sulfonate and alkylation by N-ethylmeleimide which affected their amino and thiol groups, respectively. The blocking of amino groups was carried out in the presence or in the absence of Mg-ADP and was followed both spectrophotometrically and enzymatically. Essential amino groups, whose modification throughly changes the enzymic characteristics of myosin, were found in heart and in all skeletal muscle myosins but were absent in myosins from chicken gizzard muscle and from human platelets. The reaction of these amino groups was highly retarded in the presence of Mg-ADP. Alkylation of thiols led to loss of the K+-activated ATPase (ATP phosphohydrolase, EC 3.6.1.3) in all myosins. However, the rate of loss of activity varied from one myosin to another and, for a given myosin, was affected by the presence of nucleotides and by the value of the ionic strength. The change in Ca(2+)-activated ATPase activity (ATP phosphohydrolase, EC 3.6.1.3) on alkylation was influenced by the presence of Mg - ADP during the reaction. In the absence of this nucleotide, the Ca(2+)-ATPase activity increased and reached a plateau as a consequence of modification. The extent of activation largely depended on the origin of the myosin. When alkylation was carried out in the presence of Mg-ADP, the Ca(2+)-ATPase activity as a function of time exhibited a maximum but the descending part of the curve was absent in myosins from heart and gizzard muscles.

Adenosine Triphosphatases↗
PubMed1976

Evidence for myosin-linked regulation in guinea pig taenia coli muscle.

The ATPase activity of actomyosin prepared from taenia coli muscle of guinea pig was found to increase upon adding rabbit skeletal heavy meromyosin (HMM) in the absence of Ca2+. SDS-gel electrophoresis of muscle homogenates did not reveal the presence of troponin. Ca2+-regulation in taenia coli muscle thus appears to be myosin-linked. The glycerinated muscles which did not develop any tension in the presence of EGTA contracted after irrigation with rabbit skeletal myosin. Skeletal HMM could also cause tension generation in strips of glycerinated taenia coli in the presence of EGTA. The tension developed by the muscles in the presence of Ca2+ was increased if HMM was added. The HMM-induced tension was associated with a marked increase in ATPase activity both in the presence and in the absence of Ca2+. No HMM-associated tension could be detected when inactivated HMM was employed or when MgATP was substituted with Mg-pyrophosphate or Mg-AMP-PNP. The mechanical effect of HMM probably results from a mechanochemical interaction between the added HMM and muscle actin.

Adenosine Triphosphatases↗
PubMed1976

Tension development in skinned glycerinated rabbit psoas fiber segments irrigated with soluble myosin fragments.

Single glycerinated rabbit psoas muscle fibers were skinned by splitting them lengthwise. The fiber segments thus obtained were more easily accessible to solutes in the surrounding medium than the intact fibers. Using such segments, active tension could be fully abolished by adding N-ethylmaleimide under conditions which lead to inhibition of actin activation of the ATPase activity of myosin. Such muscles could, however, develop tension after irrigation with myosin or with the water-soluble active myosin fragments heavy meromyosin (HMM) or its subfragment 1 (HMM-S1). The induced tensions increased with increasing protein concentration in the irrigating solution. At any given protein concentration, the tension generated by myosin was larger than that produced by HMM which was, in turn, greater than that induced by HMM-S1 e.g. at 15 mg/ml protein the tensions produced by these three myosin moieties were 44.0, 14.0 and 2.8 g/cm2, respectively. The tension was found to be intimately associated with ATP splitting; thus, HMM and HMM-S1 which have been treated with reagents abolishing actin-activated ATPase failed to induce tension development. A contractile force may thus be generated through the interaction with actin of the water-soluble, enzymatically active, myosin subfragments involving the splitting of ATP.

Actins↗
PubMed1976

Affinity chromatography of heavy meromyosin subfragment-1 reacted with thiol reagents.

Separation of heavy meromyosin subfragment-1 treated with N-ethyl maleimide (MalNEt) into native -SH1- and -(SH1, SH2)-blocked protein populations could be achieved by affinity chromatography on agarose-ATP columns in the presence of Mg2+ or Ca2+. Covalent bridging of the two -SH groups by p-phenylenedimaleimide gave a product which has the same affinity of binding to ATP columns as the doubly blocked MalNEt preparation. Treatment with p-phenylenedimaleimide abolished binding to immobilized F-actin columns, whereas modifications by MalNEt did not affect adsorption by this chromatographic medium. Affinity chromatography on immobilized nucleotide and actin columns is suggested as an analytical tool in the study of the involvement of thiol groups in the myosin active site and its conformation.

Actins↗
PubMed1975

Dynamic affinity chromatography of heavy meromyosin subfragment-1.

Heavy meromyosin subfragment-1 and its trinitrophenylated derivative have been chromatographed on immobilized ATP, ADP and adenosine 5'-(geta, gamma-imino) triphosphate affinity chromatography columns, in the presence and in the absence of Ng-2+ or Ca-2+.ma-32-P] ATP columns. While the divalent cations had little effect on the chromatographic pattern in the case of the non-hydrolyzable ADP and adenosine 5' (beta, gamma-imino) triphosphate, they catalyzed splitting in the case of ATP and at the same time strongly increased the affinity of adsorption of the proteins. The protein-elution and the Pi-release patterns were different for the native and the modified proteins. These results have been interpreted in terms of protein binding to the various intermediates of the ATP hydrolysis reaction.

Adenosine Diphosphate↗
PubMed1975

Identical behavior of the two active sites of myosin with respect to trinitrophenylation.

Myosin and its active subfragments were trinitrophenylated under conditions in which mainly the active site(s) was modified. Proteins modified at the active site(s) could be separated by affinity chromatography on agarose-ATP columns. By two independent methods, ATPase activity measurements and analysis of elution patterns on agarose-ATP columns, it was shown that the introduction of two trinitrophenyl groups per myosin or one per heavy meromyosin subfragment 1 molecule is responsible for the remarkable change in the ATPase activities. Heavy meromyosin subfragment 1 prepared from trinitrophenylated myosin retained the original degree of trinitrophenylation per "active head." The kinetic constant of trinitrophenylation of the epsilon-amino group of lysine at the active site was found to be 2000 S-1-M-1, whereas a much smaller constant of 2.2 S-1-M-1 was obtained for the trinitrophenylation of the unessential lysyl residues of myosin. By using affinity chromatography, we could follow the formation of mono- and ditrinitrophenyl myosin. The amounts of these myosin derivatives at various extents of the reaction corresponded approximately to the calculated amounts, assuming a random and independent trinitrophenylation of the two myosin "heads." It is concluded that in each of the two heads of myosin there is one ATPase active site and these two sites behave in an identical manner with respect to trinitrophenylation.

Adenosine Triphosphatases↗