Topography of the total protein population from cultured cells upon fractionation by chemical extractions.

Chemical extractions are proposed as a major tool for a fractionation of cellular proteins. As a model system, proteins from cultured hamster lens cells have been divided by independent extractions into seven subcellular fractions, corresponding to water-soluble proteins and the proteins from membranes, microfilaments (and other deoxycholate-soluble proteins), intermediate filaments, microtubules, polysomes and nuclei respectively. The latter two fractions have been subfractionated yielding ribosomal proteins, the elongation and initiation factors of the protein-synthesis machinery, chromatin proteins and non-chromatin proteins. The protein compositions of the fractions have been analyzed by one-dimensional and two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. This resulted in an almost complete topography of the proteins detected on two-dimensional gels of total-cell lysates. Comparison of two-dimensional patterns of proteins from the total-cell lysate and proteins from hamster erythrocytes or from liver, muscle or brain tissue showed that the different cell types have only few proteins in common. Two proteins are common to all of these cell types, namely actin and a 68-kDa protein. The latter protein was, like actin, vimentin and the tubulin subunits, also present in most cell fractions. Evidence is presented that this protein is identical to a 68-kDa heat-shock protein.