Polymerization of ADP-actin and ATP-actin under sonication and characteristics of the ATP-actin equilibrium polymer.
Polymerization under sonication has been developed as a new method to study the rapid polymerization of actin with a large number of elongating sites. The theory proposed assumes that filaments under sonication are maintained at a constant length by the constant input of energy. The data obtained for the reversible polymerization of ADP-actin under sonication have been successfully analyzed according to the proposed model and, therefore, validate the model. The results obtained for the polymerization of ATP-actin under sonication demonstrate the involvement of ATP hydrolysis in the polymerization process. At high actin concentration, polymerization was fast enough, as compared to ATP hydrolysis on the F-actin, to obtain completion of the reversible polymerization of ATP-actin before significant hydrolysis of ATP occurred. A critical concentration of 3 microM was determined as the ratio of the dissociation and association rate constants for the interaction of ATP-actin with the ATP filament ends in 1 mM MgCl2, 0.2 mM ATP. The plot of the rate of elongation of filaments versus actin monomer concentration exhibited an upward deviation at high actin concentration that is consistent with this result. The fact that F-actin at steady state is more stable than the ATP-F-actin polymer at equilibrium suggests that the interaction between ADP-actin and ATP-actin subunits at the end of the ATP-capped filament is much stronger than the interaction between two ATP-actin subunits.
D000199:Actins / Q000378:metabolism*; D000244:Adenosine Diphosphate / Q000378:metabolism*; D000255:Adenosine Triphosphate / Q000378:metabolism*; D000818:Animals; D007700:Kinetics; D008433:Mathematics; D008722:Methods; D011108:Polymers / Q000378:metabolism; D011817:Rabbits; D013010:Sonication; D013997:Time Factors
D000199:Actins; D011108:Polymers; D000244:Adenosine Diphosphate; D000255:Adenosine Triphosphate