M-phase-promoting factor activation.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to W Meikrantz.
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A simple procedure was devised for isolating from homogenates of mitotic cells the human homolog to the fission yeast cdc2 gene product. The identity of the purified protein was established with anti-p34cdc2 antibodies and p13suc 1, both specific ligands for p34cdc2. Active-site labeling with oxidized [alpha 32P]ATP showed the purified molecule to be an ATP-binding protein. Its ability to phosphorylate casein but not histone, and its phosphorylation on tyrosine, detected by anti-phosphotyrosine antibodies, indicates the form of p34cdc2 purified is the inactive or apoenzyme form. Purified quantities of human p34cdc2 should be of considerable value in establishing the mechanism of its activation at mitosis by phosphatases.
Histochemical staining of immunoprecipitates of p65, a component of human M phase-promoting factor, identified the molecule as having phosphatase activity. The enzyme, purified 3400-fold from mitotic cell extracts by (NH4)2SO4 precipitation, DEAE chromatography, and immunoaffinity chromatography on immobilized anti-p65 IgG, was inhibited by Zn2- and Na3VO4 but not NaF or beta-glycerophosphate; 32P-labeled poly(Glu, Tyr) was more efficiently dephosphorylated than phosphorylated histone or phosphorylase a. Indirect immunofluorescence showed most of the phosphatase to be localized in the nucleus of interphase cells, with a fine, granular distribution unaltered by detergent extraction; in mitotic cells, p65 was localized on chromosomes. ELISA of subcellular fractions confirmed this localization. Immunoreactive p65 was recovered from immobilized wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) upon elution with N-acetylglucosamine; similarly, WGA recognized immunoaffinity-purified p65 on blots. Alkaline hydrolysis of blotted protein prevented WGA binding, indicating that phosphatase p65, like a small group of other nuclear proteins, contains O-linked carbohydrate terminating in N-acetylglucosamine.
Antisera raised against two mitosis-specific protein kinases from human cells recognized a single 65-kDa polypeptide (p65) that is present in similar amounts in interphase and mitotic cell extracts. Immunoblot analysis of reduced and unreduced extracts revealed that p65 exists as a 65-kDa monomer during interphase but forms a 130-kDa disulfide-linked homodimer during mitosis. Several different antibodies recognizing the p34cdc2 protein kinase and cyclin B components of M phase-promoting factor (MPF) coprecipitated p65 from mitotic but not from interphase extracts. In addition, an anti-p65 immunoaffinity column substantially depleted mitotic extracts of histon H1 kinase activity assayed under conditions diagnostic for MPF. These results suggest that active human MPF may be a complex of p34cdc2, cyclin B, and dimeric p65. A sulfhydryl cycle, proposed in the earlier literature on the biochemistry of mitosis, might underlie the dimerization of p65 and formation of active MPF.