Purification and inactivation-reactivation of phosphorylase phosphatase from the protein-glycogen complex

Phosphorylase phosphatase purified from the protein-glycogen complex of rabbit muscle has a Mr of 34,000 by gel filtration and migrates as a single band of Mr 38,000 on sodium dodecyl sulfate gel electrophoresis, i.e., of the same size as the catalytic subunit of the sarcoplasmic complex of type 1 phosphatase (L. M. Ballou, D. L. Brautigan, and E. H. Fischer (1983) Biochemistry 22, 3393-3399). The enzyme, called PG-Ea, has a specific activity of 12,000 units/mg of protein and is essentially fully active, displaying at most a 20% further increase in activity on treatment with trypsin. As in the case of the catalytic subunit of the sarcoplasmic enzyme, tryptic attack decreases the size of PG-Ea to 33,000. PG-Ea is completely inhibited by the modulator protein (inhibitor 2) after formation of a complex of Mr 70,000. On incubation of this complex at 30 degrees C, the catalytic subunit is converted (t 1/2 = 30 min) to an inactive form (Ei) that can be reactivated by the protein kinase FA (J. R. Vandenheede, S.-D. Yang, J. Goris, and W. Merlevede (1980) J. Biol. Chem. 255, 11,768-11,774) or to a lower extent by trypsin-Mn2+. Also the trypsinized PG-Ea is inhibited by inhibitor 2, it forms with this a Mr 70,000 complex and undergoes an even faster (t 1/2 = 10 min) conversion to an Ei form that can be reactivated by the kinase FA or to a lower extent by trypsin-Mn2+. Enzymological comparison of PG-Ea and trypsinized PG-Ea with the FA-activated, isolated catalytic subunit of the sarcoplasmic phosphatase (called EaFA, E. Villa-Moruzzi, L. M. Ballou, and E. H. Fischer (1984) J. Biol. Chem. 259, 5857-5863) and with its trypsinized form shows several similarities. The most relevant of these is the very specific interaction with inhibitor 2, that takes to inactivation and allows the following reactivation by FA or by trypsin-Mn2+. However, the inactivation-reactivation patterns show also some differences, namely (i) the t 1/2 of the conversion to Ei is longer for PG-Ea than for EaFA, and (ii) the reactivation of PG-Ea and trypsinized PG-Ea with trypsin-Mn2+ is only partial. Altogether the similarity but not identity of PG-Ea and EaFA would suggest that they are either two different conformations of the same molecule or two isozymes.