A physicochemical comparison of the isozymes of creatine kinase from rabbit brain and muscle

A comparison of specific structural features of creatine kinase from rabbit muscle and brain was undertaken to determine if the observed isozyme specific differences in catalytic cooperativity are related to conformational differences, particularly differences in packing density. The intrinsic fluorescence of the brain isozyme is 2-fold higher than the muscle isozyme. In the denatured state, both proteins display the characteristic red shift in emission maximum; however, the emission intensity of the brain isozyme increases only 5% upon denaturation compared to nearly 100% increase for the muscle protein. The fluorescence lifetimes are 2.65 ns (67%) and 0.48 ns for native muscle enzyme and 4.38 ns (65%) and 0.80 ns for brain enzyme. Upon denaturation, the lifetimes are 3.98 ns (77%) and 0.99 ns for muscle protein and 3.82 ns (79%) and 0.86 ns for brain protein. Stern-Volmer plots of quenching by acrylamide are essentially the same for both native isozymes indicating that the differences of the intrinsic fluorescence of the native proteins are not due to differences in solvent accessibility. The spectral and lifetime differences in the isozymes in the native state and changes accompanying denaturation are consistent with the occurrence of energy transfer in native muscle isozyme. The rotational correlation times of 5-[2-(iodoacetyl)aminoethyl]aminonaphthalene-1-sulfonate conjugated proteins, derivatized at the active site reactive thiol, are best described by two term decay laws. The slower rotations, 45.1 ns (75%) and 40.6 ns (71%) reflect overall macromolecular rotation for the muscle and brain isozymes, respectively. The faster motions, 2.4 ns for muscle isozyme and 0.4 ns for the brain isozyme, are attributed to the probe or probe associated segmental motions and indicate these motions are more restricted in the muscle protein. Reactivity of creatine kinase (2.5-10 microM) with the amino-specific reagent trinitrobenzene sulfonate (0.4-2 mM) was analyzed by pseudo-first-order and second order models, neither of which was adequate for the entire range of data. However, in every case, the rate constants were faster for brain creatine kinase but the extent of reaction was greater for muscle creatine kinase. The faster initial reactivity of the brain isozyme is consistent with greater accessibility for lysine derivatization.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)