An adenosine triphosphate dependent deoxyribonuclease with adenosine triphosphatase, activity from Bacillus cereus

An adenosine triphosphate-stimulated deoxyribonuclease was purified to about 4200 fold from Bacillus cereus. The enzyme activity of the crude extract increased by a factor of about 5 after dialysis. One of the low molecular weight inhibitors of the crude extract was found to be inorganic phosphate. During enzyme purification two nucleases were identified. One of them was specific to denatured DNA and the other one degraded both denatured DNA and native DNA. The activity towards native DNA could be increased several times by ATP. Through all steps of purification the ATP-independent DNase always accompanied the ATP-dependent one and the ratio of their activity was found to be constant. The ATP-dependent DNase also possessed ATPase activity stimulated both by native and denatured DNA. The fact that ATPase was stimulated by DNA and went together with ATP-dependent DNase during purification suggests that these functions belong to the same enzyme complex. Maximal activity of ATPase had broader pH, Mg2+ and ATP concentration ranges than that of DNase. Cooperation of the two functions may be limited only to a narrow range of ATP concentration. Km for ATPase was 1.6x10-4 M ATP.