Modification of actin with fluorescein isothiocyanate

Reaction of rabbit skeletal muscle G-actin at pH 8.5 with fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) resulted in incorporation of up to 1.20 mol FITC/mol actin. At pH 8.8, the level of incorporation was raised to 1.98 mol FITC/mol actin. When excited with ultraviolet light, the FITC-actin samples fluoresced strongly with an emission maximum near 517 nm. Tryptic digests of FITC-actin containing about 1.0 mol FITC/mol actin could be separated into a nonfluorescent 33.5 kDa trypsin-resistant core protein and a fluorescent pool of small peptides. Chromatography on DEAE-Bio-Gel or two-dimensional separation on cellulose TLC plates of the peptide pool revealed that FITC was highly selective in the site of its reaction with actin, resulting in a single highly fluorescent peptide after tryptic digestion. NH2-terminal and amino acid analyses demonstrated this peptide to be derived from residues 51 to 62, with Lys-61 proposed as the major FITC-sensitive site on actin. FITC-actin is similar to G-actin in gross conformation; circular dichroism spectra of actin before and after labelling are identical. FITC-actin is also able to interact strongly with deoxyribonuclease I. However, FITC-actin solution viscosities and fluorescence properties are not altered by the addition of KCl or MgCl2. Therefore, either a localized conformational change near Lys-61 or steric hindrance due to the FITC attached to Lys-61 blocks the polymerization of actin.