Characterization of a second myosin from Acanthamoeba castellanii.

We purified a 400,000 molecular weight myosin, myosin-II, from Acanthamoeba castellanii. The sequence of ion exchange chromatography, actomyosin precipitation, actin extraction, and gel permeation chromatography yields per 100 g of cells about 11 mg of myosin-II which is 90 to 96% pure. ATPase activity is highest in the presence of Ca2+, but the enzyme is also active in EDTA provided high concentrations of K+ are present. The molecule consists of two 175,000 molecular weight heavy chains, one or two 17,500 molecular weight light chains, and two 16,500 molecular weight light chains. Myosin-II is rich in acidic residues and contains about 32 residues of cysteine/mol. The sedimentation coefficient is 5.9 S. Intrinsic viscosity is 126 cc/g. By equilibrium ultracentrifugation, the molecular weight averages depended upon the initial loading concentration in a way that suggested a 400,000 molecular weight species is in equilibrium with a 200,000 molecular weight species. By electron microscopy the molecule was seen to have two globular heads at one end of a tail 90 nm long. In KCl solutions of less than 0.25 M, the myosin-II tails self-associate to form the backbone of very small (6.6 x 205 nm) bipolar filaments with central bare zones 97 nm long. Myosin-II binds to actin filaments, forming periodic arrowhead-shaped complexes, but its Mg2+ ATPase activity is activated only 50% or less by actin. When radioactive myosin-II is incubated up to 90 min in unlabeled Acanthamoeba homogenates, it is not degraded into smaller fragments, such as the 190,000 molecular weight myosin-I. Our observations and the detailed enzymatic data presented by Maruta and Korn ((1977) J. Biol. Chem. 252, 6501-6509) argue that the smaller Acanthamoeba myosin-I (Pollard, T. D., and Korn, E. D. (1973) J. Biol. Chem, 248, 4682-2690) does not arise by fragmentation of myosin-II in the homogenate or extract.