Isolation of heavy chain isoenzymes of myosin subfragment 1 by high performance ion exchange chromatography.

The procedure of high performance ion-exchange chromatography has been used to fractionate subfragment 1 of myosin (SF1) into its isoenzymic forms. In contrast to conventional ion-exchange procedures which yield two fractions corresponding to SF1(A1) and SF1(A2), the high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) procedure resolves SF1 into four discrete fractions. The first pair that is eluted appears to be A1-containing isoenzymes while the latter pair corresponds to the A2 forms based on their polypeptide compositions by gel electrophoresis in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate. By gel electrophoresis under nondenaturing conditions it is not possible to differentiate between the two fractions corresponding to each isoenzyme. Although very minor differences between the fractions can be seen by the presence of extraneous peptides, these are present in far below stoichiometric amounts and, therefore, make it very unlikely that the superior fractionation by the HPLC procedure is based on their presence. An examination of the heavy chain heterogeneity in each of these fractions by peptide mapping revealed that the extra separation was based on this factor. Thus the HPLC procedure is capable of providing separation of SF1 into heavy chain-based isozymes as well as the light chain forms. ATPase measurements of these fractions reveal only minor differences in the Ca2+- and EDTA-activated ATPase.