Enzymatic activities and ATP-induced fluorescence enhancement of myosin from fast and slow skeletal and cardiac muscles.

The maximal ATP-induced enhancement of fluorescence and the dependence of this enhancement on ATP concentration were determined for myosins from fast and slow skeletal and cardiac muscle of the rabbit. With myosins from slow and cardiac muscle modifications in the preparative procedure and chromatography on DEAE-Sephadex were required to obtain preprations which were free of actin, which exhibited the maximal fluorescence enhancement and which bound two moles of ATP per mole of myosin. Since the fluorescence enhancement of cardiac and slow muscle myosins is labile at slightly alkaline pH, it was also necessary to minimize incubation at pH greater than 7 in order to attain the maximal enhancement. With fast muscle myosin the changes in preparative procedure, together with chromatography, led to a 50 to 100% increase in the steady-state rate of ATP hydrolysis and fluorescence enhancement, without changing the maximal binding of ATP. From a comparison of the rate of steady-state hydrolysis of ATP with the rate of decay of the enhanced fluorescence, it appears that for all three myosins, both ATP binding sites have the same enzymatic activity, the steady-state rate per site being slower for cardiac and slow muscle myosins than for fast muscle myosin.