[Characteristics of affinity modification of myosin ATPase under the action of monoaldehyde derivatives of ADP]

Abstract

It was shown that the highly purified monoaldehyde derivative of ADP obtained by partial reduction of the dialdehyde derivative of ADP causes strong irreversible inhibition of the Ca-ATPase activity of myosin subfragment I, the inhibiting effect being of the affinity modification type. The addition to the reaction medium of Mg2+ (but not Ca2+) during the subfragment I interaction with the inhibitor fully prevents the inhibiting effect at all substrates used (Ca-, Mg- or K, EDTA-ATPases). Contrariwise, the subfragment I modified in the absence of Mg2+ exhibits the same degree of inhibition for all the three types of the ATPase activity. An unexpected result that was previously unobserved for other affinity modifiers of myosin ATPase is the maintenance of activity in 50% of active centers, when "two-head" forms of the enzyme (the myosin proper and heavy meromyosin, HMM) are modified. Noteworthy that the affinity modification reaction is characterized by the same values of inhibition constants as in the case of myosin subfragment I (Ki = 3.3-3.5 X 10(-4) M; ki = 0.03-0.04 min-1). This finding provides additional evidence in favour of functional asymmetry of myosin heads in the myosin molecule which seems to be due to the screening of the active center of one head by the other one.