Identification of the 38-kDa subunit of rabbit skeletal muscle glycogen synthase as glycogenin.

Glycogen synthase from rabbit skeletal muscle has been shown to be a complex of two types of subunit which have apparent molecular masses of 86 kDa and 38 kDa and are present in a 1:1 molar ratio. The 38-kDa component was separated from the 86-kDa catalytic subunit by gel filtration in the presence of 2 M LiBr, and a number of chymotryptic peptides were sequenced. This demonstrated that the 38-kDa subunit was glycogenin, the protein that is bound covalently to glycogen and believed to be the 'primer' involved in the initiation of de novo glycogen synthesis.