Interaction of actin with myosin A and heavy meromyosin.

Ca2+ "free" actomyosin suspensions as well as actin heavy meromyosin (HMM) solutions in the presence of Ca2+ showed no contractile response (superprecipitation) and had low steady-state Mg2+-ATPase activity. Under the same experimental conditions both the enzymatic activity increased and contractile response was restored if the solubility of the proteins was depressed by the addition of polyethylene glycol 4000 (PEG-4000). The stability of the enzymatically active actomyosin or actin HMM complexes was 10 times lower in cleared solutions than in the insoluble actomyosin or actin HMM suspensions. It was concluded that soluble actomyosin or actin HMM solutions are inadequate test tube models for studying muscular contraction.