The subunit structure and active site sequence of porcine spleen deoxyribonuclease

An acid DNase (DNase II) from porcine spleen was purified by sequential chromatography over carboxymethyl-cellulose, blue dextran-Sepharose, hydroxylapatite, and sulfoxyethyl-cellulose. The purified enzyme shows two polypeptide bands on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis at Mr 35,000 (alpha chain) and 10,000 (beta chain). The sum of the two molecular weights is that of the native enzyme (45,000). Thus, the DNase II molecule is an alpha,beta dimer. The two polypeptides are not joined by disulfide bonds, but can be cross-linked chemically with dimethyl suberimidate. They are dissociable in 8 M urea, after which they can be isolated by gel filtration on Sephadex G-100, eluting with 1 M acetic acid. Once dissociated, the two polypeptides cannot be reassociated to regenerate DNase II activity. The sum of the amino acid compositions of the two polypeptides is that of the native enzyme, and both contain carbohydrate. The beta chain is devoid of histidine, half-cystine, valine, and methionine. The NH2-terminal amino acid of the alpha chain is leucine, while that of the beta chain cannot be identified by either dansylation or Edman degradation. Alkylation of an essential histidine residue of DNase II occurs on incubation of the enzyme with [2-14C] ICH2COOH (Oshima, R. G., and Price, P. A. (1973) J. Biol. Chem. 248, 7522-7526). Radioactivity is found only in the alpha chain. After hydrolysis of the alpha chain with trypsin, chymotrypsin, and thermolysin, radioactive peptides were isolated by gel filtration on Sephadex G-25 and reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography. Sequence analyses of the radioactive peptides show alkylation of 1 of 9 histidines in the entire amino acid sequence of DNase II. The sequence around this histidine, determined by manual microsequencing and by the release of amino acids with carboxypeptidases A and B, is Ala-Thr-Glu-Asp-His-Ser-Lys-Trp.