Mg2+-activated adenosine triphosphatase from Crithidia fasciculata: purification and inhibition by suramin and...

The mitochondrial Mg2+-activated adenosine triphosphatase (ATPase; EC 3.6.1.4) from the insect flagellate Crithidia fasciculata ATCC 11745 has been extracted from the membrane by chloroform treatment and purified to electrophoretic homogeneity by a method involving ammonium sulphate fractionation, gel filtration on Sephadex G-200 and DEAE-cellulose chromatography. The molecular weight of the native enzyme, determined by gel filtration, was about 350 000. Five subunits were detected by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulphate, with molecular weights of 54 000, 45 000, 35 000, 20 000 and 10 000. The membrane-bound, but not the soluble (F1) ATPase was inhibited by oligomycin and leucinostatin. Both forms of the enzyme were strongly inhibited by the antibiotic efrapeptin and the trypanocidal drug suramin. The inhibition by efrapeptin was of the mixed type, with double-reciprocal plots intersecting below the abscissa, as in the case of the enzyme present in beef heart submitochondrial particles. Suramin, on the other hand, acted as a non-competitive inhibitor of the membrane-bound ATPase and as a strictly competitive inhibitor of the purified F1 ATPase.