Demonstration of glutamate dehydrogenase isozymes in beef heart mitochondria

Glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) has been purified from beef heart mitochondria and compared with crystalline beef liver GDH. The specific activity of heart GDH was 127 units and of liver GDH 80 units. Heart GDH subjected to sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis had a protein corresponding to liver GDH and a smaller molecular weight protein. On agarose gel electrophoresis heart GDH activity was resolved into two fractions (with or without protease inhibitors) while liver had only one fraction. One of the heart fractions moved with liver GDH on electrophoresis. Thermal stability studies showed heart and liver GDH activity differed. Mouse antibodies to liver GDH precipitated both liver and heart GDH on double immunodiffusion. Mouse antibodies to liver GDH identified on nitrocellulose paper the polypeptide band of liver and heart GDH that were the same molecular weight but did not cross-react with the smaller molecular weight polypeptide present in heart GDH. Trypsin digestion of the two major protein bands on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of purified GDH from beef heart mitochondria did not show any overlapping peptides. We conclude beef heart GDH activity is composed of two isozymes. One is the same as beef liver GDH, and the other is a smaller molecular weight protein. We propose the terms GDH-LM for the liver GDH isozyme and GDH-HM for the smaller molecular weight isozyme present in heart mitochondria but not liver.