J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 263, Issue 24, 11609-11612, 08, 1988
Calcium-activated neutral proteases (calpains) are carbohydrate binding proteins
UJ Zimmerman and WW Schlaepfer
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Pennsylvania Medical School, Philadelphia 19104.
Calcium-activated neutral proteases (calpain, EC 3.4.22.17) bind to agarose
matrices (Bio-Gel A-150m, Sepharose 4B, and Ultrogel AcA 34) with high
affinity in the presence of calcium. 6-O-beta-
Galactopyranosyl-D-galactose, a disaccharide which closely resembles the
repeating unit of the agarose matrices, completely blocks the binding of
calpains and can release agarose-bound enzymes in the presence of calcium.
At least 1 microM level of free calcium is required for binding. Other
calcium binding proteins, including calmodulin, calpastatin, casein, and
neurofilament proteins, fail to bind under the same conditions. Both
calpain I and calpain II can be readily purified from crude enzyme
preparations by agarose chromatography in the presence of calcium and
leupeptin. Agarose-bound enzymes are eluted with calcium-free solutions or
can be released in the presence of calcium by 1% Triton X-100, but not by 1
M urea or 20% ethylene glycol. Enzymes eluted from agarose are activated,
as evidenced by the appearance of faster migrating forms (76 and 78 kDa) of
the 80-kDa catalytic subunit of calpain I upon electrophoresis and by the
increased sensitivity of calpain II to activation by micromolar levels of
calcium. The electrophoretic migration of the 30-kDa regulatory subunit is,
however, unaltered in enzyme fractions eluted from an agarose column. When
the enzyme subunits are dissociated in 1 M NaSCN, only the 30-kDa subunit
binds to the agarose matrix. Furthermore, neither calpain I nor calpain II
binds to agarose when their 30-kDa subunit is autocatalyzed to an 18-kDa
fragment, indicating that the NH2-terminal of the 30-kDa subunit is
important for the binding of calpains to an agarose matrix.