Assembly kinetics and identification of precursor proteins of complex I from Neurospora crassa

Complex I from Neurospora crassa was fractionated using chaotropic agents and various chromatographic techniques. Several subunits were isolated. Polyclonal antibodies directed against the holocomplex or individual subunits were raised in rabbits, and employed to analyse the composition and assembly of this respiratory chain enzyme in vivo. N. crassa cells were pulse-labelled with radioactive amino acids. The time course of incorporation of radioactivity into complex-I polypeptides was studied by immunoprecipitation. The labelling kinetics of whole complex I was found to be similar to that of cytochrome oxidase, displaying a half-maximal labelling time of 10 min. Newly synthesized individual polypeptide subunits (about 23 species) assembled into the holoenzyme at markedly different rates. Two mitochondrially synthesized proteins, a 29-kDa polypeptide (the ND-1 gene product) and a 12-kDa polypeptide were the fastest components to appear in the enzyme. We estimate that the precursor pool sizes of all components range between 1-25% of the amounts present in the final complex. Precursors of polypeptides of complex I were synthesized in an heterologous cell-free system and immunoprecipitated with subunit specific antibodies. Six isolated precursors were compared with the corresponding mature proteins. It appears that four subunits (apparent molecular masses of 22, 25, 31 and 33 kDa) are initially synthesized as larger-molecular-mass precursors. Two subunits (apparent molecular masses of 12.5 and 14 kDa) are made with the same size as their mature forms.