Structural analysis of poly(ADP‐ribose) polymerase in higher and lower eukaryotes

A phylogenetic survey for the poly(ADP‐ribose)polymerase has been conducted by analyzing enzyme activity in various organisms and determining the structure of the catalytic peptides by renaturation of functional activities of the enzyme in situ after electrophoresis in denaturating conditions (activity gel). The enzyme is widely distributed in cells from all different classes of vertebrates, from arthropods, mollusks and plant cells but could not be detected in echinoderms, nematodes, platyhelminthes, thallophytes (including yeast) and bacteria. The presence on activity gels of a catalytic peptide with M r = 115000–120000 was demonstrated in vertebrates, arthropods and mollusks but no activity bands were recovered in many lower eukaryotes, in plant cells and bacteria. By using an immunological procedure that used an antiserum against homogeneous calf thymus poly(ADP‐ribose) polymerase, common immunoreactive peptides were visualized in mammals, avians, reptiles, amphibians and fishes, while lacking in non‐vertebrate organisms. Our results indicate that the structure of poly(ADP‐ribose) polymerase is conserved down to the mollusks suggesting its important role for DNA metabolism of multicellular organisms.