Crystalline desoxyribonuclease; digestion of thymus nucleic acid; the kinetics of the reaction.

A study was made of the enzymatic properties of crystalline desoxyribonuclease. The general effect of the crystalline enzyme on its specific substrate, thymus nucleic acid, was found to be essentially the same as described by previous workers for the digestive action of crude preparations of the enzyme. The digestive action consists mainly in splitting thymus nucleic acid into fragments approaching the size of tetranucleotides. The digested nucleic acid is diffusible through collodion or cellophane membranes and is non-precipitable with strong acid, alcohol, or proteins. The digestion of thymus nucleic acid by desoxyribonuclease is accompanied by the liberation of one atom equivalent of free acid per four atoms of nucleic acid phosphorus. Crystalline desoxyribonuclease acts very slowly, if at all, in the absence of magnesium (or manganese) ions. The optimal concentration of magnesium ion required increases with the increase in concentration of the substrate but is independent of the enzyme concentration. The optimal pH range for the action of crystalline desoxyribonuclease is 6.0 to 7.0. A study was made of the kinetics of the digestion of thymus nucleic acid as manifested mainly by the gradual formation of acid-soluble split products. At low concentrations of nucleic acid, the process approximates closely a reaction of the first order, the unimolecular constant being independent of the concentration of desoxyribonuclease in the digestion mixture. At relatively higher concentrations of substrate, however, the initial rate of reaction decreases rapidly with the increase in concentration of substrate, and the reaction as a whole is represented by non-symmetric S-shaped curves apparently too complicated for a simple rational interpretation.