Structural characterization of an Ascaris myoglobin.

Globin was purified from the body wall of adults of the parasitic nematode Ascaris suum. Internal peptide fragments were sequenced and cDNAs encoding a polypeptide of 154 amino acids isolated by polymerase chain reaction. The polypeptide lacks a signal sequence, identifying it as a cytosolic myoglobin-like species. The native protein is a dimer. The predicted amino acid sequence shares several unusual substitutions with other nematode globins. Like the abundant pseudocoelomic A. suum hemoglobin it has a Tyr at B10 and a Gln at E7, substitutions thought to be determinants of high affinity. However, the 10-fold lower oxygen affinity of body wall globin suggests that in this molecule Tyr(B10) does not form an additional hydrogen bond with the heme bound oxygen. Evolutionary analysis of the nematode globins suggests that the monodomain myoglobin-like molecules and the two-domain hemoglobin-like molecules diverged about 500 million years ago, well before the divergence of the ascarid genera Ascaris and Pseudoterranova. The absence of introns in the A. suum myoglobin, in contrast to other nematode globin genes, is consistent with the hypothesis that during evolution intron elimination was the predominant event.