Purification of Dictyostelium myosin II heavy chain kinase A based on the increase in negative charge accompanying hyperphosphorylation.

The initial step in the purification of Dictyostelium myosin II heavy chain kinase A (MHCK A) is chromatography over phosphocellulose. Fractions containing MHCK A are pooled and chromatographed over a Mono Q column (Pharmacia LKB Biotechnology) equilibrated in 0.15 M KCl. Under these conditions MHCK A and most of the contaminating proteins elute in the flowthrough. The addition of Mg2+ and ATP to the Mono Q flowthrough results in the phosphorylation, within 15 min, of MHCK A to a level of 10 mol of phosphate per mole of 130-kDa kinase subunit. The hyperphosphorylated MHCK A binds to Mono Q columns in the presence of 0.15 M KCl and can be eluted, as a single homogeneous band, by a salt gradient to 0.35 M KCl. A similar purification procedure may prove useful for other proteins which can be highly phosphorylated. Hyperphosphorylation is shown to have no effect on the position at which MHCK A elutes from gel filtration columns (apparent M(r) greater than 700,000).