The soluble form of rat liver alpha-mannosidase is immunologically related to the endoplasmic reticulum membrane alpha-mannosidase.

The soluble alpha-mannosidase of rat liver, originally described as a cytoplasmic alpha-mannosidase, has been purified to homogeneity by conventional techniques. The purified enzyme has an apparent molecular weight of 350,000 and is composed of 107-kDa subunits. The soluble alpha-mannosidase has the same enzymatic properties as the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane alpha-mannosidase of rat liver (Bischoff, J., and Kornfeld, R. (1983) J. Biol. Chem. 258, 7909-7910) which is believed to play a role in oligosaccharide processing in the rough ER. Like the membrane-bound ER alpha-mannosidase, the soluble alpha-mannosidase can hydrolyze alpha-linked mannose from both p-nitrophenyl alpha-mannoside (Km = 0.14 mM) and high mannose oligosaccharides, is not inhibited by the mannose analogues swainsonine and 1-deoxymannojirimycin, is stabilized by MnCl2 or CoCl2, and does not bind to concanavalin A-Sepharose. A goat polyclonal antibody raised against the purified soluble alpha-mannosidase specifically recognizes the rat liver membrane-bound ER alpha-mannosidase, leading us to propose that they are two forms of the same enzyme and that the soluble form is derived from the ER membrane alpha-mannosidase by proteolysis. The antibody also cross-reacts with both the soluble and membrane-bound forms of ER alpha-mannosidase activity in cultured Chinese hamster ovary cells and rat H35 hepatoma cells. Since the ER alpha-mannosidase is presumed to be involved in the early steps of oligosaccharide processing, the action of the purified soluble form of the enzyme on high mannose oligosaccharides was examined. Surprisingly, the enzyme released free mannose from oligosaccharides ranging in size from Glc1Man9GlcNAc to Man5GlcNAc with almost equal efficiency. However, a long term incubation of the enzyme with Man9GlcNAc led to the accumulation of Man7GlcNAc and produced only small amounts of Man6GlcNAc and Man5GlcNAc. Structural analysis of these reaction products indicated that the purified soluble form of ER alpha-mannosidase shows little specificity for which mannose residues it removes from Man9GlcNAc. In contrast, as shown in the accompanying paper, the intracellular action of ER alpha-mannosidase on glycoprotein-bound Man9GlcNAc2 is highly specific.