Multiple forms of an extracellular cyclic-AMP phosphodiesterase from Dictyostelium discoideum

The extracellular cyclic-AMP phosphodiesterase of a mutant of Dictyostelium discoideum which accumulates this enzyme was found to exist in multiple forms. Using the isoelectric focusing technique the phosphodiesterase activity was distributed into three peaks with isoelectric points of 4.6, 6.5 and 8.3, designated as p4, p6 and p8. Gel filtration and sucrose gradient analysis showed that the p4 activity consisted of two forms of different sedimentation coefficients. At high enzyme concentrations, the heavy form was favored. Dilution of enzyme activity shifted the equilibrium toward the light form. Direct analysis by sucrose gradient sedimentation of all isoelectric forms demonstrated that besides p4, p6 activity also existed as a mixture of the heavy (9.7 S) and the light (5.4 S) components. In contrast, the p8 activity displayed only the light form. The heterogeneity of the p4 and p6 isoelectric forms was also observed by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. A procedure for a partial purification of the extracellular enzyme to about 70-fold is presented.