title: Studies on the regulatory domain of Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II by expression of mutated cDNAs in Escherichia coli.
abstract: The cDNAs encoding the alpha and beta subunits of Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaM kinase II) were ligated into the bacterial expression vector pET and expressed in Escherichia coli. The bacterially expressed alpha and beta subunits exhibited Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent activity and were easily purified to apparent homogeneity from cell extracts. To determine the minimum size required for catalytic activity and the properties of the calmodulin-binding domain, mutated CaM kinase II cDNAs were expressed in E. coli and the enzymatic property of expressed proteins was examined. The replacement of Thr-286 of the alpha subunit with the negatively charged amino acid Asp or that of Arg-283 with the neutral amino acid Gly induced the partially Ca2+ independent activity. The mutant enzymes alpha-I(delta 283-478) and alpha-II(delta 359-478), which truncated the C-terminal region of the alpha subunit, exhibited CaM kinase II activity and the activities of alpha-I(delta 283-478) and alpha-II(delta 359-478) were completely independent of and partially dependent on Ca2+ and calmodulin, respectively. However, the truncated protein alpha(delta 250-478), which was only 33 amino acids shorter than the alpha-I(delta 283-478) protein had no enzymatic activity, indicating that alpha-I(delta 283-478) was close to the minimum size of the active form. The mutant enzyme alpha(delta 291-315), which lacked the calmodulin-binding domain exhibited Ca2+ independent activity. The molecular mass was, however, smaller than that expected from the amino acid sequence. The mutant enzyme alpha(delta 304-315), which lacked the C-terminal half of the calmodulin-binding domain of the alpha subunit, however, exhibited Ca(2+)-independent activity without a reduction in molecular size, indicating that residues 304-315 of the alpha subunit constituted the core calmodulin-binding domain.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cell Biology, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Neuroscience, Japan.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hagiwara
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ohsako
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yamauchi
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D002118:Calcium / Q000378:metabolism*; D017871:Calcium-Calmodulin-Dependent Protein Kinases; D002147:Calmodulin / Q000378:metabolism*; D002384:Catalysis; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D004591:Electrophoresis, Polyacrylamide Gel; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016296:Mutagenesis; D009154:Mutation; D010766:Phosphorylation; D011494:Protein Kinases / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D013696:Temperature
chemical_list: D002147:Calmodulin; D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D011494:Protein Kinases; D017871:Calcium-Calmodulin-Dependent Protein Kinases; D002118:Calcium