Autolysis of thermolysin. Isolation and characterization of a folded three-fragment complex

Incubation of the neutral metalloendopeptidase thermolysin at pH 7.2 in the presence of EDTA and/or low concentrations of calcium ions produces fast enzyme inactivation as a result of autolysis. The 'nicked' protein is a folded species composed of three tightly associated protein fragments. Dissociation of this complex can be achieved under denaturing conditions, such as gel filtration on a column equilibrated with 5 M guanidine hydrochloride or reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) at acidic pH. The positions of the peptide bond cleavages were defined by isolation of the individual fragments by HPLC and their characterization by amino acid analysis after acid hydrolysis, end-group determination and partial amino acid sequencing. The results of these analyses indicated that the nicked protein is composed of fragments 1-196, 197-204 and 205-316 and thus that the corresponding sites of limited proteolysis occur at the polypeptide chain loop involved in the binding of Ca(4) in native thermolysin [Matthews, B. W., Weaver, L. H. and Kester, W. R. (1974) J. Biol. Chem. 249, 8030-8044]. The overall conformational properties of nicked thermolysin are quite similar to those of the intact protein, as judged by spectroscopic measurements and by the fact that rabbit antibodies against native thermolysin recognize and precipitate the nicked protein in immunodiffusion assays. The nicked protein was much less stable to heat and unfolding agents than intact thermolysin. These results contribute to a better knowledge of the molecular mechanism of stabilization of native thermolysin by the four bound calcium ions and demonstrate that the function of Ca(4) is to stabilize the loop 190-205 on the surface of the molecule against autolysis.