Purification and chemical modification of a phosphatidylinositol kinase from sheep brain

A membrane-bound phosphatidylinositol (PtdIns) kinase has been purified approximately 9500-fold to apparent homogeneity from sheep brains. The purification procedure involves: solubilisation of the membrane fraction with Triton X-100, ammonium sulphate fractionation and a number of ion-exchange and gel-filtration chromatography steps. The purified enzyme exhibited a final specific activity of 1149 nmol.min-1.mg-1. The molecular mass of the enzyme was estimated to be 55 kDa by SDS/PAGE and 150 +/- 10 kDa by HPLC gel filtration in the presence of Triton X-100. Kinetic measurements have shown that the apparent Km value of PtdIns kinase for the utilisation of PtdIns is 22 microM and for ATP 67 microM. Mg2+ was the most effective divalent cation activator of PtdIns kinase, with maximal enzymatic activity reached at a concentration of 10 mM Mg2+. In addition to adenosine and ADP, the 2'(3')-O-(2,4,6-trinitrophenyl) derivative of ATP was found to be a strong competitive inhibitor of the enzyme, with a Ki of 32 microM. Enzymatic activity was found to be stimulated by Triton X-100 but inhibited by deoxycholate.