Properties of Kaurene Synthetase from Marah macrocarpus

The kaurene synthetase from immature seeds of Marah macrocarpus (Greene) Greene was partially purified from cell-free homogenates of endosperm by a combination of QAE-Sephadex A-25 chromatography and hydroxyapatite chromatography and freed of contaminating phosphatase activity. The two catalytic activities associated with kaurene synthetase, the cyclization of geranylgeranyl-pyrophosphate to copalyl-pyrophosphate (activity A) and the cyclization of copalyl-pyrophosphate to ent-kaurene (activity B), were not even partially resolved from one another during these procedures. Both activities had identical elution profiles from a calibrated Sepharose 4B column corresponding to a molecular weight less than that of ovalbumin (45,000).