The amino terminus of ADP-ribosylation factor (ARF) 1 is essential for interaction with Gs and ARF GTPase-activating protein.

The role of the amino terminus in the actions of ADP-ribosylation factor 1 (ARF1) was examined by comparing wild type ARF1, a 13-residue NH2-terminal deletion mutant ([delta 13]ARF1), and a 17-residue NH2-terminal deletion mutant ([delta 17]ARF1). The amino-terminal 13 residues of ARF1 are required for cofactor activity in the ADP-ribosylation by cholera toxin when Gs is the substrate. This is in marked contrast to the finding that cofactor activity is the same for wild type and [delta 13]ARF1 when agmatine is substrate (Hong, J.-X., Haun, R. S., Tsai, S.-C., Moss, J., and Vaughan, M. (1994) J. Biol. Chem. 269, 9743-9745). These data support the conclusion that ARF1 interacts with both cholera toxin and Gs and that the amino terminus of ARF1 is required specifically for binding Gs. Surprisingly, this result also clearly revealed that the two principal assays for ARF activity, cofactor activity for cholera toxin using either Gs or agmatine as substrates, used for over 10 years in different laboratories, can yield quite different results. While both NH2-terminal deletion mutants failed to support the ADP-ribosylation of Gs by cholera toxin, [delta 13]ARF1, but not [delta 17]ARF1, inhibited the activity of the wild type protein. The GTPase activity of [delta 13]ARF1 was activated to a small extent by ARF GTPase-activating protein (GAP), whereas that of [delta 17]ARF1 was unaffected. We conclude that residues 14-17 are involved in the interaction of ARF with both cholera toxin and ARF GAP. The co-purifying nucleotides, nucleotide exchange kinetics, and dependence of exchange on phospholipids for the mutant proteins were all different from the wild type ARF1 proteins. The importance of monitoring the nucleotide binding to ARF proteins under the conditions used in the ARF assay and expressing ARF activities as specific activities, normalized to GTP binding sites, particularly when comparisons between different proteins or preparations are made, is discussed.