Trypsin modification of Escherichia coli alkaline phosphatase

A trypsin-modified form of Escherichia coli alkaline phosphatase has been isolated, purified, and characterized. The native enzyme, previously thought to be resistant to proteases, shows a loss of 20% of its activity after a 30-min exposure to 10% trypsin. No further loss is seen after 3 h; this is in contrast to the apoenzyme which loses essentially all restorable activity (addition of saturating Zn(II) and Mg(II) restores activity to the apoenzyme) when exposed to trypsin. Under these conditions, a single major peptide is produced, cleaved at the Arg-10 Ala-11 bond, which is purified using a chromatographic technique that separates proteins according to their pI (chromatofocusing). This modified alkaline phosphatase has a Vmax of 2000 mumol/h/mg (1 M Tris, pH 8.0, 20 degrees C, 1 mM p-nitrophenolphosphate) which is 22% less than the Vmax for the native enzyme. The Km for p-nitrophenolphosphate is lower for trypsin-modified alkaline phosphatase than for the native enzyme, 1.9 X 10(-5) and 4 X 10(-5) M, respectively. The KI for Pi for the native enzyme is 1.5 X 10(-5) M and for trypsin-modified alkaline phosphatase is 1 X 10(-5) M, suggesting that the reduction in Vmax is due to a reduction in the rate constant for Pi dissociation. Differential scanning calorimetry results indicate differences in the stabilities of the two species. The trypsin-modified alkaline phosphatase has a Tm of 90 degrees C which is lower than that for the reconstituted apoenzyme (93.5 degrees C) or for the native enzyme (98.5 degrees C). This modified form of alkaline phosphatase may prove to be valuable in studies concerning subunit interactions in this system as the deleted decapeptide occurs at the subunit interface region in the native structure.