Characterization of a phospholipase C activity regulated by the purified Gh in reconstitution systems

Recently, we have reported that the isolated guanine nucleotide-binding regulatory protein, Gh, couples to the alpha 1-adrenergic receptor (Im, M.-J., and Graham, R. M. (1990) J. Biol. Chem. 265, 18944-18951 and Im, M.-J., Riek, R.P., and Graham, R. M. (1990) J. Biol. Chem. 265, 18952-18960) and has a molecular mass of approximately 74 kDa, and the approximately 50-kDa protein which is copurified probably regulates guanine nucleotide binding of the 74-kDa GTP-binding protein. In this paper, we describe the role of purified Gh in the regulation of phospholipase C in the reconstitution system. The stimulation of phospholipase C activity by Gh effectively occurred at a low calcium concentration (less than or equal to 2 microM), but the phospholipase C (PLC) itself required at least 50-100 times more calcium to become fully activated. The characteristic nature of phospholipase C stimulation by Gh is its response to the calcium concentration. Thus, the enzyme activity changes in narrow submicromolar ranges and reaches maximal stimulation, but it does not extend to the levels above those stimulated by calcium alone. The calcium concentrations for the maximal stimulation of phospholipase C activity were 10-20 microM with phospholipid vesicles and 100-200 microM with detergent solution. These calcium concentrations were further decreased when Gh and phospholipase C were co-reconstituted into the phospholipid vesicles or in the detergent solution. The maximal stimulations of the PLC activity were reached at less than 5 microM calcium in both the vesicles and the detergent solution. The changes of calcium concentration for the activation of PLC are quite different from those obtained by reconstituting PLC-beta 1 with Gq-like G-proteins (Smarcka, A. V., Hepler, J. R., Brown, K. O., and Sternweis, P. C. (1991) Science 251, 804-807 and Taylor, S. J., Chae, H. Z., Rhee, S. G., and Exton, J. H. (1991) Nature 350, 516-518). The phospholipase C activity was stimulated in a Gh concentration-dependent manner in the presence of GTP gamma S. The phospholipase C activity was activated by Gh alpha in the presence of aluminum fluoride, but not by Gh beta. Furthermore, a Gh.PLC complex can be induced by incubation with aluminum fluoride in a detergent solution and partially purified without the dissociation of related proteins. Thus, our reconstitution studies show that the pattern of stimulation of PLC by AIF-4-activated Gh in the ternary complex is similar to the stimulation of PLC activated by Gh in both detergent solution and phospholipid vesicles.