Purification and characterization of a casein‐kinase‐II‐type enzyme from Xenopus laevis ovary

A casein kinase of type II has been highly purified from Xenopus laevis ovary. A new experimental protocol has been developed for the purification, consisting in four chromatographic steps: hydrophobic on tyrosine‐agarose, ion exchange on DEAE‐Sepharose, affinity on heparin‐Sepharose and fast protein liquid on Mono Q. The purification was > 20000, taking into account an inhibitor present in the starting material which masked the activity in the crude fraction. The overall yield was >20%. Full‐grown Xenopus oocytes contain 64 milliunits per oocyte corresponding to an intracellular concentration in the nanomolar range. The enzyme shares the following features with the mammalian casein kinase II: (a) comparable subunit composition (42‐kDa doublet, 38 kDa and 26 kDa), (b) autophosphorylation of the 26‐kDa subunit, (c) ability to use GTP as well as ATP as phosphate donor, (d) inability to use Mn 2+ instead of Mg 2+ to support the activity, (e) phosphorylation of both threonine and serine residues of casein, (f) inhibition by low doses of heparin. Biological effects of the highly purified enzyme have been investigated upon microinjection into Xenopus full‐grown oocytes. At nanomolar concentrations (∼ 3 nM) the enzyme inhibited progesterone induction of meiotic cell division whereas it facilitates meiotic maturation at the level of maturation‐promoting factor. These results suggest a role for the kinase in the phosphorylation cascade involved during the prophase/metaphase transition of meiotic cell division, both in the mechanism of the meiotic prophase arrest and in the activity of the cytoplasmic factor maturation‐promoting factor. When microinjected into oocytes above 45 nM, the kinase provoked complex changes in the profile of the in ovo 32 P‐labelled proteins indicating that its targets could be other kinase/phosphatase regulatory proteins.