Partial purification and characterization of a translational inhibitor from Friend leukemia cells.

A translational inhibitor has been isolated from unstimulated Friend leukemia cells. The inhibitor is a heat-labile, sulfhydryl reagent-insensitive protein with a molecular weight of approximately 214,000. It inhibits protein synthesis at a step of peptide chain initiation by preventing initiation factor-dependent binding of methionyl-tRNAf to 40 S ribosomal subunits. However, it does not interfere with the formation of the ribosome-independent ternary complex between the initiation factor IF-E2, methionyl-tRNAf, and GTP. The inhibitor preparation contains protein kinase activity which phosphorylates the smallest subunit of IF-E2. There appears to be a functional similarity between this inhibitor from Friend leukemia cells and the hemin-controlled repressor from reticulocytes.