Molecular Adaptability of Carp Myosin: a Study of Some Physico-Chemical Properties and Their Comparison with Those of Rabbit Myosin

Abstract

During thermal inactivation, the addition of as low as M urea resulted in the reduction of δG+ barrier of the inactivation of carp myosin Ca²⁺- ATPase, whereas that of rabbit myosin remained unaffected. In the absence of urea, a four-hour incubation of carp myosin was accompanied by the release of light chains at 30 °C, a value 10 °C lower than that for rabbit myosin.

Electron micrographs revealed that carp myosin forms artificial thick filaments, which were uniform in size and may differ in a few details from those of rabbit. Not only that helical content of carp myosin was about 4% less than those of rabbit myosin, but it showed more sensitivity to thermal and urea denaturation; and its reversibility upon subsequent cooling or removal of urea was rather poor. The loss in helicity of myosins by urea was a concentration- and temperature-dependent biphasic reaction, with the most obvious effect observed on carp myosin. That carp myosin has increased tendency of unfolding in urea solutions was confirmed by viscosity data and the exposure of thiols also. Even in the absence of urea more SH groups of carp myosin were incorporated by DTNB, and more ϵ-amino groups reacted with NQS. Carp myosin remained in solution till the modification of about 52 surface amino groups, whereas no precipitation effect was noted in case of rabbit myosin. Neither amino-acid composition nor some parameters derived from it, such as average hydrophobicity polarity index and number of polar side chains, revealed any difference pertinent to the relative stability of the two myosins. On the contrary, the contractile efficiency of carp myosin in the near physiological range was high and thus inversely related with the thermostability. This relationship along with the above evidence has been regarded to demonstrate the adaptability of carp myosin through a loose molecular conformation, which has probably been achieved by the addition of weak interactions in the course of evolution.