(Received for publication, August 8, 1995)
From the
The actin-activated Mg-ATPase and in vitro motility activities of the three Acanthamoeba myosin I
isozymes depend upon phosphorylation of their single heavy chains by
myosin I heavy chain kinase. Previously, the kinase had been shown to
be activated by autophosphorylation, which is enhanced by acidic
phospholipids, or simply by binding to purified plasma membranes in the
absence of significant autophosphorylation. In this paper, we show that
the rate of phosphorylation of myosin I by unphosphorylated kinase is
20-fold faster when both the myosin I and the kinase are bound to
acidic phospholipid vesicles than when both are soluble. This
activation is not due to an increase in the local concentrations of
vesicle-bound kinase and myosin I. Thus, acidic phospholipids, like
membranes, can activate myosin I heavy chain kinase in the absence of
significant autophosphorylation, i.e. membrane proteins are
not required. Kinetic studies show that both binding of kinase to
phospholipid vesicles and autophosphorylation of kinase in the absence
of phospholipid increase the V
relative to
soluble, unphosphorylated kinase with either an increase in the
apparent K
(when myosin I is the
substrate) or no significant change in K
(when a synthetic peptide is the substrate). Kinetic data
showed that autophosphorylation of phospholipid-bound kinase is both
intermolecular and intervesicular, and that phosphorylation of
phospholipid-bound myosin I by phospholipid-bound kinase is also
intervesicular even when the kinase and myosin are bound to the same
vesicles. The relevance of these results to the activation of myosin I
heavy chain kinase and phosphorylation of myosin I isozymes in situ are discussed.
Each of the three isoforms of Acanthamoeba myosin I has
a single 110-140-kDa heavy chain with an
80-kDa
N-terminal domain, that is highly similar in sequence to the
subfragment 1 domain of conventional myosin II, and a
50-kDa
nonfilamentous C-terminal domain that has no sequence similarity to the
C-terminal domain of conventional myosin (1, 2; for reviews, see (3, 4, 5) ). The N-terminal head domain
contains an ATP-binding site (6) and an ATP-sensitive,
F-actin-binding site(7, 8) , as do all myosins. The
C-terminal tail domain contains an ATP-insensitive, F-actin-binding
site (8, 9, 10) and a membrane (and acidic
phospholipid)-binding site (10, 11) which, thus far,
appear to be unique to the myosin I family. Actin-activated
Mg
-ATPase activity is expressed in vitro only when a single serine (myosin IB and IC) or threonine (myosin
IA), situated between the ATP- and actin-binding sites in the globular
head(6) , is phosphorylated(12, 13) . The
biological importance of phosphorylation of the myosin I heavy chain is
evidenced by the observations (14) that
80% of myosin IA
and
20% of myosin IB and IC are phosphorylated in situ,
that the fraction of phosphorylated myosin IC associated with the
contractile vacuole in situ varies with the stage of the
contractile vacuole cycle(14) , and that antibodies that
specifically inhibit phosphorylation of myosin IC (the only myosin
associated with the contractile vacuole(3) ) inhibit
contractile vacuole activity of living cells(15) .
Acanthamoeba myosin I heavy chain kinase (16) is a
single 97-kDa polypeptide (17) which is
50-fold
activated by autophosphorylation of up to 8-10
sites(18) . The rate of kinase autophosphorylation is
20-fold greater in the presence of acidic
phospholipids(18) . As determined by immunoelectron microscopy,
30% of myosin I heavy chain kinase is associated with the plasma
membrane in situ(19) and both the kinase and its
substrate, myosin I, bind to plasma membranes in
vitro(19, 20) . The rate of autophosphorylation
of plasma membrane-bound kinase is only slightly greater (
2- to
5-fold) than the rate of autophosphorylation of soluble kinase, but the
membrane-bound kinase is much more active than expected from its level
of phosphorylation(21) . Thus, before the present work, there
seemed to be two different ways to activate myosin I heavy chain
kinase: (i) autophosphorylation, which is stimulated by acidic
phospholipids, and (ii) association of kinase with plasma membranes
independent of autophosphorylation.
The experiments described in this paper were initiated to determine whether autophosphorylation-independent activation of myosin I heavy chain kinase was, as it appeared to be from the earlier experiments, unique to membranes and, if so, to attempt to identify the membrane components responsible for this activity. Initial experiments showed, however, that activation of kinase by acidic phospholipids and plasma membranes were, contrary to previous indications, qualitatively similar. This had not been observed in the earlier experiments (21) because phospholipid-bound kinase is autophosphorylated much more rapidly than membrane-bound kinase making it experimentally more difficult to show that phospholipid-bound kinase is activated before it is significantly autophosphorylated. With appropriate conditions defined, it has been possible to characterize more fully the phospholipid-enhanced autophosphorylation-dependent activation of kinase, the phospholipid-dependent autophosphorylation-independent activation of kinase, and phosphorylation of phospholipid-bound myosin I by phospholipid-bound phosphorylated and nonphosphorylated kinase. The results of these experiments are reported in the present paper and their potential relevance to myosin I-related activities in vivo is discussed.
Figure 1:
Interactions of unphosphorylated myosin
I heavy chain kinase with phospholipid vesicles. A, effect of
phosphatidylserine (PS) content on binding: kinase (72 nM) was
mixed at room temperature with phospholipid vesicles (0.24 mM total lipid) containing increasing percentages of PS in 20
mM imidazole, pH 7.0, containing 1 mM EGTA, 2 mM MgCl, and 1 mg/ml bovine serum albumin. The mixtures
were centrifuged at 200,000
g for 30 min, and the
amount of kinase in the pellet was determined by quantitative
densitometry of SDS-PAGE gels stained with Coomassie Blue. B,
conditions for total binding: kinase (172 nM) was mixed at
room temperature with phospholipid vesicles (2.5 mM total
lipid containing varying percentages of PS) in 20 mM
imidazole, pH 7.0, containing 1 mM EGTA, 2 mM MgCl
, and 1 mg/ml bovine serum albumin. The mixtures
were centrifuged at 200,000
g for 30 min at 20 °C,
and the amount of kinase in the pellet (P) and supernatant (S) was quantified by Coomassie Blue-stained SDS-PAGE gels. To
sediment all of the vesicles, as determined by analysis of total
phosphorus, it was necessary that the buffer contain 2 mM
Mg
. Lanes 1S and 1P, 7.5% PS; lanes 2S and 2P, 15% PS; lanes 3S and 3P, 30% PS; lanes 4S and 4P, 90% PS; lanes 5S and 5P, no PS. C, irreversibility
of binding: 100 nM kinase was incubated with phospholipid
vesicles (2.0 mM total lipid, 30% PS) in a total volume of 250
µl of 20 mM imidazole, pH 7.0, containing 1 mM EGTA, 2 mM MgCl
, and 1 mg/ml bovine serum
albumin, and an aliquot of 50 µl was removed. The remaining
vesicles were pelleted, the supernatant was removed, and the pellet was
resuspended in 200 µl of fresh buffer from which a 50-µl
aliquot was removed. The vesicles in the remaining suspension were
pelleted, the supernatant was removed, and the pellet was resuspended
in 150 µl of fresh buffer. Identical aliquots (50 µl) of the
original suspension, the first and second supernatants, and the
resuspended first and second pellets were incubated with
[
-
P]ATP in autophosphorylation buffer in
the presence of 0.2 mM 30% PS vesicles. The entire sample was
then subjected to SDS-PAGE, and the gels were stained by Coomassie blue (upper panel) and quantified by densitometry of autoradiograms (lower panel). Lane 1, original suspension; lane
2, first supernatant; lane 3, first resuspended pellet; lane 4, second supernatant; lane 5, second
resuspended pellet. Parallel control experiments showed that under
these conditions identical, maximal autophosphorylation (9 mol/mol) was
obtained for amounts of kinase between 0.17 and 8.5 pmol and that the
densitometric values were directly proportional to the amount of
radioactivity. Therefore, the densitometric values were a direct
measure of the amount of kinase in each sample (see
``Results'').
Figure 2:
Autophosphorylation of phospholipid-bound
myosin I heavy chain kinase as a function of phosphatidylserine (PS)
concentration. Kinase (255 nM) was added to phospholipid
vesicles (2.5 mM total lipid) containing 7.5%, 15%, 30%, or
90% PS under conditions in which all of the kinase bound to the
vesicles. The suspensions were diluted approximately 9-fold (27 nM kinase) in autophosphorylation buffer and incubated at 30 °C
for 0.5 min with [-
P]ATP. The extent of
autophosphorylation was quantified by SDS-PAGE and autoradiography. The open circle is a control experiment with soluble kinase in the
absence of phospholipid. Phospholipid vesicles containing no PS could
not be used as a control because kinase binds very poorly to vesicles
in the absence of PS (see Fig. 1).
The rates of autophosphorylation of soluble kinase, i.e. in the absence of phospholipid (Fig. 3A, filled circles), and of kinase bound to 30% PS vesicles (Fig. 3A, open triangles) were both directly proportional to the kinase concentration. These results indicate that autophosphorylation of both soluble and phospholipid-bound kinase has a substantial intermolecular component. Under both conditions, a slope of 2 was obtained for the plot of the log of the initial velocity of autophosphorylation versus the log of the kinase concentration (Fig. 3B, filled circles and open triangles) as expected for an intermolecular reaction (27) ; the slope is 1 for intramolecular reactions(27) . Moreover, as the different concentrations of phospholipid-bound kinase were obtained by dilution of aliquots of a single batch of vesicles containing bound kinase and, as we have shown, the kinase does not dissociate from the vesicles, autophosphorylation must be intervesicular as well as intermolecular because the kinase concentration within each vesicle would not have been affected by dilution of the vesicles (see ``Discussion''). Identical results were obtained when the vesicles with bound kinase were diluted with buffer that contained kinase-free vesicles to maintain a constant concentration of phospholipid (Fig. 3, A and B, open circles).
Figure 3: Effect of the concentration of myosin I heavy chain kinase on the rate of kinase autophosphorylation. A, the initial rates of autophosphorylation of soluble kinase incubated for 1 min at 23 °C (filled circles) and of kinase bound to phospholipid vesicles (30% PS) incubated at 10 °C for 30 s (open triangles) or 15 °C for 20 s (open circles) are plotted as functions of kinase concentration. The rate of autophosphorylation of soluble kinase was constant for at least 2 min and of phospholipid-bound kinase for at least 1 min. For the experiment with phospholipid-bound kinase, kinase (153 nM) was added to phospholipid vesicles (2 mM total lipid, 30% PS) under conditions in which all of the kinase bound to the vesicles. Aliquots were then diluted to the indicated concentrations of vesicle-bound kinase with either buffer only (open triangles) or buffer containing kinase-free vesicles to maintain the same phospholipid vesicle concentration (0.29 mM total lipid) in all samples. B, the same data are replotted as the log of initial velocity versus the log of the kinase concentration. The observed slopes of 2 for both soluble and phospholipid-bound kinase indicate that autophosphorylation is both intermolecular and intervesicular (see text).
Figure 4: Comparison of kinase autophosphorylation and simultaneous phosphorylation of Acanthamoeba myosin IA, IB, and IC by soluble and phospholipid-bound myosin I heavy chain kinase. Kinase (72 nM) was added to phospholipid vesicles (2.5 mM total lipid containing 30% PS). The samples were diluted 10-fold in phosphorylation buffer containing either 0.63 µM myosin IA, 0.66 µM myosin IB, or 0.63 µM myosin IC and incubated for 0.5 min at 30 °C during which period the rates of myosin phosphorylation and kinase autophosphorylation were constant. Parallel samples contained 7.2 nM soluble kinase and no phospholipid. The proteins were separated by SDS-PAGE, and phosphorylation of myosin (M) and kinase (K) was quantified. Solid bars, soluble kinase and myosin I (no phospholipid present); open bars, phospholipid-bound kinase and myosin I. Note the different scales for myosin I phosphorylation and kinase autophosphorylation.
It
seemed likely that the increase in myosin I phosphorylation in the
presence of phospholipids was due entirely to the effect of
phospholipid on the kinase because soluble and phospholipid-bound
myosin I are equally good substrates for soluble, phosphorylated kinase (21) which does not bind to phospholipids(19) . In
order to determine if the enhanced rate of phosphorylation of
phospholipid-bound myosin I by phospholipid-bound kinase were due
simply to the faster rate of autophosphorylation of phospholipid-bound
kinase, the activities of phospholipid-bound and soluble kinase were
measured as a function of the extent of kinase phosphorylation. These
experiments were possible because kinase that is bound to phospholipid
vesicles when unphosphorylated remains bound after it is
autophosphorylated (19 and data not shown). Parallel experiments were
carried out with each of the three myosin isozymes as substrate (Fig. 5). The activity of soluble kinase was approximately
directly proportional to the extent of kinase phosphorylation (Fig. 5, A, B, and C, open
circles). Phospholipid-bound and soluble kinase had similar
activities at the highest levels of kinase phosphorylation assayed
(4-5 mol/mol); however, phospholipid-bound kinase (Fig. 5, A, B, and C, filled circles) was
substantially more active than soluble kinase at low levels of kinase
phosphorylation. These data demonstrate that the activity of myosin I
heavy chain kinase can be enhanced substantially simply by the kinase
being bound to acidic phospholipid vesicles without significant
autophosphorylation, i.e. acidic phospholipid vesicles behave
as previously shown for purified plasma membranes. Note that the
difference in the slopes of the curves for soluble and
phospholipid-bound kinase implies that soluble kinase would be
significantly more active than phospholipid-bound kinase at
phosphorylation levels higher than those tested in this experiment
(levels of 10 mol/mol can be obtained).
Figure 5: Relationship between the phosphorylation of myosin I and the level of phosphorylation of soluble (open circles) and phospholipid-bound (filled circles) myosin I heavy chain kinase. Soluble kinase (50 nM) or phospholipid-bound kinase (50 nM kinase, 1.7 mM total lipid, 30% PS) were allowed to autophosphorylate for different periods of time, and aliquots were then diluted to 6.9 nM kinase (for incubation with myosin IA and IB) or 7.3 nM kinase (for incubation with myosin IC) in phosphorylation medium containing 0.64 µM myosin I. The reactions were stopped after 0.5 min, and the extent of autophosphorylation of kinase and phosphorylation of myosin I was determined. A, substrate, myosin IA; B, substrate, myosin IB; C, substrate, myosin IC.
To determine if the phosphorylation of phospholipid-bound myosin I by phospholipid-bound kinase was predominantly intravesicular or, like kinase autophosphorylation, intervesicular, the phosphorylation of myosin I by kinase bound to the same and to different phospholipid vesicles was compared at three different vesicle concentrations (Table 1). To ensure that all of the vesicles contained bound kinase as well as bound myosin I (see ``Discussion''), the kinase/phospholipid ratio in this experiment was about 5 times that used in the experiment described in Fig. 4; by SDS-PAGE analysis, all of the kinase and myosin I was bound to the phospholipid vesicles (data not shown). The rates of myosin I phosphorylation were concentration-dependent and essentially identical irrespective of whether the kinase and myosin were bound to the same phospholipid vesicles or to different phospholipid vesicles (Table 1). If significant intravesicular phosphorylation occurred, vesicle dilution would not affect the rate or extent of phosphorylation when the myosin I and kinase were bound to the same vesicles. The fact that kinase autophosphorylation is intervesicular and, therefore, dependent on the vesicle concentration, does not complicate the interpretation of these experiments because the rate of phosphorylation of myosin IB by vesicle-bound kinase is the same for unphosphorylated and phosphorylated kinase (Fig. 5B). Thus, the data in Table 1strongly suggest that phosphorylation of myosin I is predominantly intervesicular even when the kinase and myosin are bound to the same vesicles, i.e. independent of the relative kinase and myosin concentrations within the same vesicle. These results are consistent with data obtained previously for the phosphorylation of membrane-bound myosin I by membrane-bound kinase(21) . These results also provide additional evidence that the differences between soluble and phospholipid-bound systems described in Fig. 4and Fig. 5on were not due to locally high concentrations of kinase and myosin I on the same vesicles.
Figure 6: Double reciprocal plots of the rates of phosphorylation of myosin I and PC9 by soluble unphosphorylated and phosphorylated myosin I heavy chain kinase and phospholipid-bound unphosphorylated myosin I heavy chain kinase. Soluble unphosphorylated kinase (filled circles), soluble kinase prephosphorylated to 9.1 mol of phosphate/mol of kinase (open triangles) or unphosphorylated kinase bound to phospholipid vesicles (open circles) were incubated with myosin IA (A) or myosin IB (B) for 0.5 min or PC9 (C) for 1 min at the indicated concentrations, and the extent of phosphorylation of myosin I, PC9, and phospholipid-bound kinase was determined. With myosin IA or IB as substrate, kinase (43 nM) was bound to phospholipid vesicles (2.5 mM total lipid, 30% PS) and diluted to 5 nM kinase in the phosphorylation buffer; soluble unphosphorylated and phosphorylated kinases were also 5 nM. With PC9 as substrate, kinase (69 nM) was added to phospholipid vesicles (2.1 mM total lipid, 30% PS) and diluted to 13.8 nM kinase in the assay mixture; soluble unphosphorylated kinase was 55 nM, and soluble phosphorylated kinase was 6.9 nM. All reactions were linear for the period of incubation. The concentrations of myosin I in the presence and absence of phospholipids cannot be compared directly because, in the presence of phospholipid, none of the myosin was in solution. PC9 does not bind to phospholipid vesicles.
Figure 7: Effect of myosin I concentration on the phosphorylation of myosin I and autophosphorylation of myosin I heavy chain kinase. Kinase (265 nM) bound to phospholipid vesicles (2.1 mM total lipid, 30% PS) was diluted to 27 nM in phosphorylation buffer containing the indicated concentrations of myosin IB and then incubated at 30 °C for 45 s, and the extent of phosphorylation of myosin I and kinase was determined.
This laboratory had previously shown that myosin I heavy
chain kinase is activated in solution by
autophosphorylation(18) , that the rate of autophosphorylation
is greatly enhanced by acidic phospholipids (18) and, to a
lesser extent, by isolated plasma membranes(21) , and that the
ability of the kinase to phosphorylate myosin I is also activated by
binding the kinase to purified plasma membranes even in the absence of
significant autophosphorylation(21) . The data in the present
paper show that phosphorylation of myosin I by myosin I heavy chain
kinase is also activated, independent of autophosphorylation, when
kinase is bound to acidic phospholipids; thus,
autophosphorylation-independent activation does not, as previously
speculated, require plasma membrane proteins. This activation is the
result of an increase in V with either an
increase in apparent K
(when myosin I is the
substrate) or no significant change in K
(when PC9
is the substrate). The increase in kinase activity resulting from
autophosphorylation of soluble kinase in the absence of phospholipid
vesicles is also due entirely to an increase in V
, again with either an increase (for myosin I)
or no significant change (for PC9) in K
. The
concentration dependence of the rates of autophosphorylation of soluble
and vesicle-bound kinase reported in this paper indicates that both
reactions are substantially intermolecular.
That, contrary to our
original supposition(21) , membrane proteins are not required
for autophosphorylation-independent activation of kinase by
phospholipids, does not mean that there is no regulatory role for
membrane proteins in the myosin I cascade. Membrane proteins are
probably involved in the specificity of binding of both kinase and the
myosin I isoforms to different membranes in situ and in
vitro(19, 28, 29) . Moreover,
phospholipid vesicles have a higher capacity than isolated plasma
membranes for both kinase and myosin I, ()and
autophosphorylation of phospholipid-bound kinase is more rapid and more
extensive than autophosphorylation of membrane-bound
kinase(18, 19, 21) . Addition of purified
membrane proteins to phospholipid vesicles reduces their binding
capacity for myosin I to that of purified plasma membranes.
About 70% of the phospholipid vesicles used in the experiments
reported in this paper had diameters between 20 and 70 nm; the other
30% had diameters between 70 and 180 nm. Because of the much greater
surface area of the larger vesicles, only 16% of the kinase and
myosin I would have been bound to vesicles of less than 70 nm diameter,
on the assumption that both proteins bind to vesicles in proportion to
the number of phospholipid molecules on the vesicle surface. At the
concentrations of kinase and phospholipid used in most of the
experiments reported in this paper, the ratio of bound kinase molecules
to single-bilayer vesicles with diameters of 20 nm, 40 nm, 60 nm, 80
nm, and 120 nm would have been 1:20, 1:5, 1:2, 1:1, and 4:1,
respectively, calculated on the basis of 1650 phospholipid molecules on
the surface of a 20-nm diameter vesicle (30) (the kinase to
vesicle ratio would be substantially greater for multi-bilayer
vesicles). At the apparent K
for vesicle-bound
myosin I, there would have been about 100 times more vesicle-bound
myosin I than vesicle-bound kinase (0.6 µM myosin I and 5
nM kinase, Fig. 6and Table 2). In those
experiments, about 84% of the phospholipid-bound kinase and myosin I
would have been associated with vesicles that contained 1 to 4 kinase
molecules and 100 to 400 myosin I molecules. Therefore, it was
theoretically possible for both intermolecular kinase
autophosphorylation and myosin phosphorylation by kinase to have
occurred mostly within the same vesicle. However, autophosphorylation
of vesicle-bound kinase decreased upon dilution of the vesicles as
expected if autophosphorylation occurred between kinase molecules on
different vesicles, i.e. kinase autophosphorylation was
intervesicular as well as intermolecular. Similarly, the observation
that myosin I was phosphorylated at the same rate when kinase and
myosin were bound to different vesicles as when kinase and myosin were
bound to the same vesicles strongly indicates that myosin
phosphorylation was also predominantly intervesicular (in that
experiment, by calculation, 98% of the kinase was bound to vesicles
containing 1 to 20 kinase molecules and vesicles with bound myosin I
contained no less than 20 myosin molecules). Since both reactions are
predominantly, if not exclusively, intervesicular, the enhancement of
autophosphorylation of kinase and kinase-catalyzed phosphorylation of
myosin I when the proteins are bound to phospholipid vesicles cannot be
due to an increase in their local concentrations on the vesicles.
The observations that both kinase autophosphorylation and myosin
phosphorylation are activated by binding of kinase to phospholipids and
that the two reactions are competitive suggest that both reactions are
regulated by the same mechanism. Previous experiments established that
the N-terminal 7-kDa region of the kinase is required for binding
of kinase to membranes and acidic phospholipid vesicles(22) ,
and that an
54-kDa peptide fragment derived from the C-terminal
region of the kinase is more active catalytically than the native
enzyme (for both kinase autophosphorylation and myosin I
phosphorylation). Also, the C-terminal kinase fragment neither binds to
nor is activated by either plasma membranes or acidic phospholipid
vesicles(31) . Thus, it seems likely that the catalytic domain
in the C-terminal half of the native kinase is either in a low activity
conformation or inaccessible to substrate (either myosin I or another
kinase molecule) unless the kinase is either sufficiently
phosphorylated or its N-terminal region is bound to membranes or acidic
phospholipid vesicles. This is consistent with our earlier data which
showed that phosphorylation and binding to phospholipid vesicles
produced similar changes in the accessibility of the catalytic domain
of the kinase to trypsin(33) . The very much higher K
and I
for PC9 than for the native
substrates also suggests that the interactions between the kinase and
its substrates involve more than just the primary sequence around the
phosphorylation site (the sequence of PC9 is the same as the
phosphorylation site of myosin IC and similar to the sequences of the
phosphorylation sites of myosins IA and IB). A similar suggestion has
been made recently for smooth muscle myosin light chain
kinase(32) . These, and many other, aspects of the regulation
of myosin I heavy chain kinase activity remain unclear. Particularly
intriguing questions concern the localization and role of each of the
multiple autophosphorylation sites. It is of some interest to compare
the data in this paper to the situation in situ. About 70% of
the myosin I kinase of Acanthamoeba appears to be in the
cytoplasm unassociated with membranes(19) . From the kinetic
data for soluble kinase presented in this paper, the activity of the
cytoplasmic kinase would be expected to vary with the extent to which
it is phosphorylated which, presumably, would be a function of the
relative rates of its autophosphorylation and dephosphorylation.
Approximately 90% of the total myosin IA is cytoplasmic(29) ,
at an estimated concentration of
0.1 µM if it were
uniformly distributed. However, as myosin IA appears to be localized to
the subplasma membrane, actin-rich cortex, the local concentration of
myosin IA might be closer to the K
of 2
µM reported in this paper for soluble phosphorylated
kinase. Cytoplasmic myosin IA is mostly phosphorylated(14) ,
which indicates that, in situ, the rate of phosphorylation of
cytoplasmic myosin IA by myosin I heavy chain kinase exceeds the rate
of dephosphorylation of myosin I by a cytoplasmic phosphatase.
About
30% of myosin I heavy chain kinase and 40% of myosin IB and IC are
associated with the Acanthamoeba plasma membrane in
situ(29) . From the data in this and a previous (21) paper, the membrane-associated kinase would be expected to
be in a relatively activated state, whether phosphorylated or not.
There are about 100 molecules of myosin IB and myosin IC per
µm of plasma membrane(29) , assuming uniform
distribution within the membrane. This is similar to but less than the
estimated concentration of myosin molecules on the surface of the
phospholipid vesicles, 500 molecules/µm
, at the
apparent K
of 0.5 µM for
phospholipid-bound unphosphorylated kinase. However, if
membrane-associated kinase in situ behaves similarly to
phospholipid-bound kinase in vitro, membrane-associated myosin
I would be a poor substrate for membrane-associated kinase, because
phosphorylation of phospholipid-bound myosin by phospholipid-bound
kinase is largely intervesicular. By strict analogy, kinase would not
be able to phosphorylate myosin I within the same plasma membrane.
Therefore, the present results leave uncertain the mechanism by which
20% of plasma membrane-associated myosin I remains phosphorylated
at steady state in situ(14) . One possibility is that
membrane-associated myosin I is phosphorylated in situ by
cytoplasmic myosin I heavy chain kinase, which is enriched in the
subplasma membrane cortex(19) , and accounts for about 70% of
the total kinase in the cell(19) . This is consistent with our
earlier results which showed that even though soluble
autophosphorylated kinase does not bind to membranes in
vitro(19) , it can phosphorylate membrane-bound myosin
I(21) . Alternatively, membrane-associated kinase and myosin I
may interact differently in situ than when bound to
phospholipids in vitro. Also, there may be specific situations
in which two membrane surfaces are sufficiently closely apposed to
allow phosphorylation of membrane-bound myosin by membrane-bound
kinase, e.g. during endocytosis.
Many questions remain. For example, is myosin I heavy chain kinase activated in situ by both of the mechanisms that operate in vitro: association with membranes and autophosphorylation? What are the concentrations in situ of cytoplasmic and membrane-bound phosphokinase? These questions might be answered by immunoelectron microscopy utilizing antibodies specific for phosphokinase, as described elsewhere for quantifying phosphomyosin I in several cellular compartments(14) , but such experiments require information on the sequences and roles of the multiple autophosphorylation sites that is not yet available.