Activator proteins for glycosphingolipid hydrolysis by endoglycoceramidases. Elucidation of biological functions of cell-surface glycosphingolipids in situ by endoglycoceramidases made possible using these activator proteins

Endoglycoceramidase (EGCase) cleaves the linkage between oligosaccharides and ceramides of various glycosphingolipids (Ito, M., and Yamagata, T. (1986) J. Biol. Chem. 261, 14278-14282). Recently, by extensive purification, it was separated from cell-lytic factor (hemolysin) and found to consist of three molecular species each with its own specificity (EGCases I, II, and III) (Ito, M., and Yamagata, T. (1989) J. Biol. Chem. 264, 9510-9519). A detergent was required for EGCases to express full activity, possibly due to their hydrophobic nature, and thus EGCases cannot be used for research on live cells. This paper presents findings on activator proteins in the culture supernatant of Rhodococcus sp. M-777 regarding the stimulation of EGCase activity in the absence of detergents. The activator protein, exhaustively purified and designated as activator II in this study, showed a single protein band on sodium dodecyl sulfate-, native-, and isoelectrofocussing-polyacrylamide slab gel electrophoresis after being stained with Coomassie Brilliant Blue. Its molecular weight and pI were 69,200 and 4.0, respectively. The activator protein enhanced the hydrolysis of glycosphingolipids in vitro and on the cell-surface by EGCase II in the absence of detergents in a concentration-dependent manner. Interestingly, activator II stimulated the activity of EGCase II much more than that of EGCase I on using asialo-GM1 as the substrate. This activator protein was found nonspecific to substrates susceptible to hydrolysis with EGCase II. Besides activator II, strain M-777 produced a second minor molecular species of activator protein designated as activator I which appeared specific for stimulating the activity of EGCase I in contrast to activator II. Following the addition of activator II, EGCase II hydrolyzed cell-surface glycosphingolipids quite efficiently at neutral pH at which hydrolysis hardly occurred at all in its absence. When using activator II in place of Triton X-100 for stimulating EGCase II activity, it was also noted to cause no damage to intact cells. It is thus possible by activator proteins to elucidate the biological functions of endogenous glycosphingolipids in situ by EGCases.