Extensive proteolytic digestion of the (Ca2+ + Mg2+)-ATPase from sarcoplasmic reticulum leads to a highly hydrophobic proteinaceous residue with a mainly alpha-helical structure.

The purified (Ca2+ + Mg2+)-ATPase from sarcoplasmic reticulum was subjected to extensive proteolysis by using trypsin and proteinase K. This digestion led to the elimination of a considerable portion of the protein, so that the lipid to protein weight ratio was increased from 0.44 in the purified ATPase to 1.20 after extensive proteolysis. After the digestion, the residue was found to be considerably enriched in hydrophobic amino acids. FT-IR spectroscopic studies indicated that the secondary structure of the proteolytic residue was enriched in alpha-helix with 75%, compared with 48% in the intact purified ATPase. FT-IR studies using ATR polarization showed that the alpha-helical part of the residue of proteolytic digestion was considerably more polarized than the purified ATPase, indicating that, on average, the alpha-helices of the residual protein should lie with an orientation closer to the normal to the plane of the membrane. Thermal denaturation studies showed that the residue of proteolysis was considerably more stable than the intact purified ATPase. This would be compatible with the residue being protected from denaturation by its hydrophobic location within the membrane. This study is experimental evidence of the alpha-helical structure of the membrane part of this protein, as suggested by predictions made from its known primary structure (Brandl et al., 1986).