Nonspecific snail muscle adenylate deaminase: simplified purification, characterization and use for the preparation of deamino derivatives of NAD, NADH and AMP-P(NH)P.

Chromatography on phosphocellulose P-11 under conditions different from those applicable for deaminases specific to 5' AMP resulted in homogeneous preparation of snail foot muscle enzyme. Snail deaminase is a tetramer with molecular weight of 240,000, composed of four apparently identical subunits. Its amino acid composition is remarkably different from deaminases of higher animals, it was not inhibited by EDTA, but zinc became inhibitory to the snail enzyme. Unlike deaminases specific to 5' AMP, nonspecific deaminase is not a zinc-containing enzyme. It was adopted further for the preparation of hypoxanthine derivatives of adenosine-containing nucleotides such as NAD, NADH, AMP-P(NH)P, AMP, ADP and ATP.