Mammalian brain acetylcholinesterase : a study of its solubilization, purification, molecular state and interactions with cholinergic ligands including an endogenous modulator

Membrane bound AChE from calf brain caudate nucleus was solubilized by use of ion-free media in presence of 10~ M EDTA and 10“5M tetracaine. The irreversible release of AChE was more effectively inhibited by divalent ions compared to monovalent ions added to the medium. EDTA appears to chelate divalent ions released from the tissue while tetracaine competes with the same ions at the membrane. The tetracaine effect is restricted to the procaine series of local anesthetics. Small amounts of soluble AChE are present in the cytosol fraction. In fresh preparations most of the enzyme appeared in a form having a molecular weight of 80.000 daltons as determined by gel filtration. The enzyme seems to be released in this form. It is proposed that this form represents the monomer form of the enzyme. In solution the AChE aggregates seemingly together with a factor that is released from the membrane in amounts stafchio- metric to the enzyme. By treatment with DEAE-Sephadex the enzyme preparation can be made non-aggregating. A highly purified nonaggregating monomeric AChE Specific activity 17150 micromoles acetylthiocholine hydrolyzed per minute at 27° C per mg protein) was obtained by affinity chromatography. Some anomalous binding phenomena was observed during the affinity chromatographic purification. The main observation was that edrophonium eluted crude enzyme preparation adsorbed to the affinity gel in a biphasic manner. It was found that in the crude preparation there is present besides unspecific material competing with the enzyme for the affinity gels a factor that increases the affinity of AChE to certain cholinergic ligands. Since the enzyme could be titrated by the factor it seems to have a very high affinity to the enzyme and the biphasic elution curve is explained by the presence of free as well as factor- bound enzyme in the preparation. In search for compounds having a similar effect it was found that fluoride ion too increased the affinity of AChE to the same ligands as the factor. The affinity of edrophonium to the site defined by the binding of AChE to MTA-CH (65x10“5m) is lower than that defined by the enzyme inhibitory constant (1.8xlO“7M). As an explanation of this finding it is proposed that the substrate induces a conformation having high affinity to edrophonium, a conformation that has a comparatively low relaxation rate. Thus acetylcholinesterase may be added to the list of enzymes that have hystere- tic properties.S. 1-54: sammanfattning, s. 55-100: 4 uppsatserdigitalisering@um