Identification of lysine residue at or near active site of luffin-a, a ribosome-inactivating protein from seeds of Luffa cylindrica.

Luffin-a, a ribosome-inactivating protein from the seeds of sponge gourd (Luffa cylindrica), was modified with 2,4,6-trinitrobenzenesulfonic acid (TNBS) at pH 8.0 and 20 degrees C. The inhibitory activity of the modified luffin-a on protein synthesis using rabbit reticulocyte lysate was lost rapidly at a rate compatible with that of the modification of a single highly reactive amino group in the initial stage of the reaction. By cation-exchange FPLC of the products of 5-min modification, TNP-luffin-a containing one modified amino group was obtained and shown to have only 6.7% of the activity of native luffin-a without any gross conformational change. The amino acid composition and sequence of the TNP-peptide, isolated by reverse-phase HPLC of the tryptic digest of the TNP-luffin-a, unambiguously demonstrate the trinitrophenylation of lysine residue at position 231. From these results, it was concluded that Lys231 of luffin-a is highly reactive to TNBS and is located at or near the active site of luffin-a.