The structure and stability of trypsin-resistant segments from rabbit tropomyosin.

Tropomyosin was found to undergo only limited digestion by trypsin at 0 degrees C and the two segments that accumulated amounted to two-thirds of the original protein. They are referred to as segments A and B. These segments were not resistant to trypsin digestion at 20 degrees C and at the latter temperature no large fragments remained as judged by disc gel electrophoresis. Segments A and B were separated from each other on the basis of solubility differences and were found to have molecular weights of 24600 and 21900 respectively. Each of the segments appeared to retain about 70-75% of the helical conformation as judged by circular dichroism at 20 degrees C. However, the segments did not show any of the inhibitory activity of the parent tropomyosin molecule when mixed with troponin in the Mg2+-actomyosin ATPase system. Amino acid analysis showed that the portion of tropomyosin that was digested by trypsin (EC 3.4.21.4) had a lower content of the helix stabilizing residues Glu and Leu and a higher content of the helix-destabilizing residues Arg and Lys. These differences indicate that the digested portion should be less stable in the helical conformation than the two trypsin-resistant segments. End group determinations along with the results of the amino acid analysis indicated that segment A was probably derived from the central one-third of tropomyosin and segment B from the C-terminal one-third. By the process of elimination the N-terminal third appears to have been more liable region that was digested by trypsin. The segments A and B were shown to differ in their stability to denaturation by guanidine-HCl and elevated temperature. All of these observations indicate that tropomyosin is not a uniform structure and is composed of regions of different stability.