Depolymerization of solubilized gastric (H+ + K+)-ATPase by n-octylglucoside or cholate.

We have previously shown that an active (H+ + K+)-ATPase can be extracted from gastric apical membranes using n-octylglucoside (Soumarmon, A., Grelac, F. and Lewin, M.J.M. (1983) Biochim. Biophys. Acta 732, 579-585). This extract contained an holomeric enzyme of 390-420 kDa and contained 68% of the K+-stimulated ATPase specific activity originally present. We demonstrate here that inactivation, induced during a more classically designed protocol, is associated with the appearance of smaller, polymorphic structures with molecular mass of 330-360 and 240-250 kDa estimated using molecular sieve chromatography and glycerol gradients. This suggests that (H+ + K+)-ATPase solubilization by n-octylglucoside is a complex process involving first extraction of the enzyme as an active polymer, with subsequent depolymerication and inactivation of this polymer. Depolymerization was specifically studied by treating the large holomeric n-octylglucoside-extracted (H+ + K+)-ATPase with increasing concentrations of either n-octylglucoside or cholate. Detergent-induced changes were characterized by centrifugation on glycerol gradients. Progressive displacement of ATPase activity into three different peaks at 32%, 26% and 20% glycerol was found with increasing detergent concentrations. n-Octylglucoside inhibited enzyme activities and was more deleterious for phosphatase than for ATPase activity. Moreover, it induced the dissociation of phosphatase and ATPase distribution profiles. At concentrations of 0.2 to 1.15%, cholate induced the displacement of the glycerol gradient profiles but no loss of activities and no dissociation of phosphatase and ATPase profiles. Higher concentrations of this detergent (2.5%) also inactivated the ATPase concomitantly with the appearance of a protein peak with no related activity at 16-18% glycerol. From this study we suggest that solubilization of gastric (H+ + K+)-ATPase can be achieved through the extraction of a polymer by n-octylglucoside and through subsequent depolymerization using cholate. We suggest that the different sizes correspond to monomers, dimers, trimers and perhaps tetramers. The monomers were apparently inactive under present test conditions.