Applications of aqueous two-phase partition to isolation of membranes from plants: a periodic NADH oxidase activity as a marker for right side-out plasma membrane vesicles.

Phase separations using standardized mixtures of polyethylene glycol, dextran and potassium phosphate are used widely to prepare highly purified plasma membranes from plants and in the preparation of chloroplast subfractions. Other uses include the removal of right side-out plasma membrane vesicles as contaminants from Golgi apparatus, endoplasmic reticulum and tonoplast (vacuole membrane) fractions and separation of right side-out and inside-out plasma membrane vesicles. The higher degree of separation between plasma membranes into the upper phase and internal membranes into the lower phase is in large measure due to the fact that only plasma membranes are oriented cytoplasmic side in. Most other membranes are oriented cytoplasmic side-out. This property extends to separations of right side-out and inside-out plasma membrane vesicles and to the separation of right side-out and inside-out sub-mitochondrial particles. The inside-out vesicles partition into the lower phase whereas the right side-out vesicles remain in the upper phase. The lack of efficacy of aqueous two-phase partitioning in other types of membrane separations is apparently due to the fact that surface characteristics that may distinguish different internal membranes are not located at the cytosolic membrane surface. At present there are no direct enzymatic markers for right side-out plasma membrane vesicles from plants. Demonstrations of sidedness and estimates of fraction purity are based on measurements of latency of marker enzymes, e.g., ATPases, at the cytosolic surface. This report describes a periodic NADH oxidase as an enzyme marker for right side-out plasma membrane vesicles not requiring detergent disruptions of vesicles for measurement of activity.