Microelectrophoresis of α-glycerophosphate dehydrogenase isozymes in various tissues of wild-type and mutant Drosophila

Structural analysis of glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase from several Drosophila species

This report describes preliminary protein structural studies of glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (alpha-GPDH) from Drosophila spp. and an important innovative feature of our enzyme purification protocol. The scheme involves the coupling of substrate (alpha-glycerophosphate) elution from CM-Sephadex and cofactor (NADH) elution from Affi-Gel blue resin. Using this method a 32.7% yield and a 111-fold purification were obtained from a D. melanogaster line carrying the alpha-GpdhS allele at the alpha-Gpdh locus. The product obtained from 0 to 3-day-old adult flies was electrophoretically homogeneous and consisted mainly of the adult alpha-GPDH-1 isozyme. The method was used to obtain alpha-GPDH protein from D. melanogaster (two lines), D. hydei, D. immigrans, and D. mercatorum. Peptide mapping revealed structural differences among the enzymes from the different species, and amino acid sequencing showed many similarities between D. melanogaster alpha-GPDH and the rabbit muscle enzyme.

Thermal stability of alpha-glycerophosphate dehydrogenase in Drosophila

Thermal stability of alpha-glycerophosphate dehydrogenase-1 (alpha-Gpdh-1) in nine Drosophila species was studied at pH's ranging form 6.4 to 8.5. This was done by measuring the changes in the activity of enzymes during the heat denaturation process. In addition to temperature, the rate of denaturation is highly dependent on the pH of the incubation buffer. The results of this study show that the thermal stability of enzyme molecules is different in different species. This holds true also in the species in which the enzymes have been found to be identical by other means. The differences between species of the Drosophila virilis group are discussed.