Purification and characterization of the adenine phosphoribosyltransferase and hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase activities from Leishmania donovani

The adenine phosphoribosyltransferase (APRTase) and hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase (HGPRTase) activities from promastigotes of Leishmania donovani have been purified to homogeneity using ammonium sulfate precipitation, DEAE-cellulose exclusion, and either AMP-agarose (APRTase) or GTP-agarose (HGPRTase) affinity chromatography. The specific activities of the affinity-purified APRTase and HGPRTase fractions were 326-fold and 1341-fold greater than those in the 40-80% ammonium sulfate precipitate, respectively. The purified APRTase migrated as a single band on sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) polyacrylamide gels with a size of 29 kDa, while HGPRTase was also determined to be homogeneous by SDS gel electrophoresis with a size of 24 kDa. In addition, a mutant cell line, APPB2, partially deficient in APRTase activity, still contained quantities of purifiable APRTase protein, while a clonal secondary derivative of the APPB2 cell line that is completely deficient in APRTase activity, APPB2-640A3, failed to express purifiable APRTase protein. The homogeneous enzymes possessed apparent K_m values for their nucleobase substrates between 2.0 and 5.0 μM, and both enzymes were inhibited by their immediate or ultimate reaction endproducts, APRTase by AMP and PP_i, and HGPRTase by GMP, GTP, and PP_i. The generation of homogeneous preparations of APRTase and HGPRTase protein will serve as a prerequisite for the generation of immunological and molecular biological probes to analyze the leishmanial phosphoribosyltransferases.