Purification and characterization of UDP-N-acetyl-D-glucosamine:dolichol phosphate N-acetyl-D-glucosamine-1-phosphate transferase involved in the biosynthesis of asparagine-linked glycoproteins in the mammary gland.

The GlcNAc-1-P-transferase that initiates the dolichol cycle for the biosynthesis of asparagine-linked glycoproteins has been purified from the lactating bovine mammary gland. After solubilization from microsomes with 0.25% Nonidet P-40, the enzyme activity was stabilized with 20% glycerol, 20 micrograms/ml phosphatidylglycerol, 5 microM dolichol phosphate, and 2.5 microM UDP-GlcNAc. The purification protocol involved (NH4)2SO4 precipitation, gel filtration on Sephacryl S-300, DEAE-TSK, and hydroxylapatite chromatography. The purified enzyme was devoid of several readily detectable glycosyltransferases of the dolichol cycle. It showed two bands (A, 50 kDa and B, 46 kDa) on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis after either Coomassie Blue or silver staining. Antisera (anti-A and anti-B) raised against individual bands A and B inhibited the enzyme activity in solubilized microsomes. Each of the partially purified antibodies recognizes both bands A and B on Western blots of the enzyme; with the solubilized microsomes, the antibodies also recognize an additional polypeptide of approximately 70 kDa. When radioiodinated microsomes were immunoprecipitated with anti-B and subjected to sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, again bands of 46, 50, and 70 kDa were observed. The peptide mapping of 50 and 46 kDa bands of the purified enzyme by chemical cleavage with N-chlorosuccinimide gave similar fragmentation patterns. The results indicate that either 70 kDa band is a precursor form of the enzyme or this polypeptide, representing the native enzyme or its subunit, is proteolyzed to smaller, enzymatically active peptide(s) of 50 and 46 kDa during purification despite the inclusion of several inhibitors against serine-proteases in all buffers used for tissue homogenization and enzyme purification. A number of properties of the purified enzyme, including its specific activation by Man-P-Dol were also characterized.