Identification of protein phosphatase activities in maize seedlings

Three phosphatases active on phosphocasein (PhosphoCasein Phosphatases) termed PCP-I, PCP-II and PCP-III were isolated from maize seedlings by DEAE-cellulose chromatography and were shown to display a different specificity toward a variety of phosphorylated substrates including pNPP, phosphohistones, phosphorylase a and several phosphopeptides containing either phosphoserine or phosphothreonine. PCP-I and PCP-II bind to heparin-Sepharose, retain a remarkable pNPP activity, are uncapable to dephosphorylate phosphorylase a, and display striking activity toward the acidic phosphopeptide AS[32P]EEEEE. They also by far prefer phosphoseryl peptide RRAS[32P]VA over its phosphothreonyl derivative and are unsensitive to okadaic acid up to 1 microM. These properties are not consistent with the belonging of PCP-I and -II to any of the known classes of protein phosphatases and suggest that they are acidic phosphatases. Conversely, PCP-III is essentially free of pNPP activity; it readily dephosphorylates phosphohistone H1 and phosphorylase a and it displays a striking preference toward the phosphothreonyl peptides (RRAT[32P]VA and RRREEET[32P]EEEAA), while the phosphoseryl peptides (RRAS[32P]VA and AS[32P]EEEEE) are very poor substrates of the enzyme. These properties together with the findings that PCP-III does not bind to heparin-Sepharose and is highly sensitive to okadaic acid (IC50 = 0.2 nM) allow to identify PCP-III with a protein phosphatase of the PP-2A class.