Cardiac alpha-crystallin. I. Isolation and identification.

A water soluble protein, a major component of the cytosolic fraction of rat heart cells, was purified using either reverse phase HPLC or antibodies affinity chromatography procedures and characterized. The protein has an apparent Mr of 24 k, as judged by SDS-gel electrophoresis. Under non-denaturing conditions, however, the protein occurs as a homomultimer (Mr between 400 and 650 k) of the monomeric 24 kDa species and could be selectively enriched by fractionation of the cytosolic fraction on 10 to 40% sucrose gradients. Polyclonal antibodies, raised against the denatured 24 kDa protein, were used to investigate its tissue distribution. Besides the heart, where it is very abundant, the 24 kDa protein is expressed also in other red muscles and in kidneys, but was not detectable in stomach, thymus, liver, and brain. The amino acid composition of the protein and the partial amino acid sequence of various proteolytic fragments was determined. A search for homologies of the primary structure of known proteins has shown that the 24 kDa protein is strikingly similar, if not identical to alpha-B-crystallin. In fact, the two proteins were found to be indistinguishable also by immunological criteria. This study demonstrates that the lens protein alpha B-crystallin is a major cytosolic component of heart cells.