Journal of Lipid Research, Vol 22, 364-369, Copyright © 1981 by Lipid Research, Inc.
A new method for the isolation of rat liver acetyl-CoA carboxylase
LA Witters and B Vogt
Rat liver acetyl-CoA carboxylase has been purified to homogeneity by a new
method involving polyethylene glycol precipitation, and DEAE and Sepharose
4B chromatography. The final product displays a single band on SDS
polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of estimated molecular weight 240,000.
This material contains 5.5 +/- 0.3 moles of alkali-labile phosphate per
subunit and has a specific activity of 1.2 +/- 0.2 units per mg protein. As
compared to previous purification procedures for the liver enzyme, this
product has a higher phosphate content, lower specific activity, and an
absence of major proteolysis. Trypsin digestion of 32P-labeled acetyl-CoA
carboxylase from hepatocytes reveals that the 32P-labeled phosphorylation
sites are extremely labile to proteolytic digestion. Potential modification
of isolated liver acetyl-CoA carboxylase by proteolysis and/or
dephosphorylation must be ascertained prior to in vitro enzymatic studies.