Elongation factor 1 alpha from Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Rapid large-scale purification and molecular characterization.

Cytoplasmic elongation factor 1 alpha (EF-1 alpha) was purified to homogeneity from the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae using a large-scale procedure. The three steps of purification used were batch adsorption on phosphocellulose, phosphocellulose chromatography and, as the last step, GDP-Sepharose or Biorex column chromatography. The protein is very basic (pI = 9.2) and has an apparent molecular mass of 49 kDa, as determined by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis using denaturing conditions. It is one of the most abundant proteins in yeast (about 5% of total soluble protein), as shown by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and by immunological titration. A strong immunological and structural homology was found between yeast EF-1 alpha and elongation factors from other sources. Common immunological features were found between yeast and wheat germ EF-1 alpha. Tryptic hydrolysis of yeast EF-1 alpha in the presence of 25% glycerol generated a large trypsin-resistant polypeptide (Mr = 43,000) which had the same NH2-terminal sequence as the proteolyzed product from rabbit reticulocyte, Artemia salina EF-1 alpha and Escherichia coli EF-Tu. Completed DNA sequence determination of one structural gene for yeast EF-1 alpha confirmed a remarkable conservation of several protein sequence domains in yeast and animal EF-1 alpha (Cottrelle, P., Thiele, D., Price, V., Memet, S., Micouin, J.Y., Marck, C., Buhler, J.M. Sentenac, A., and Fromageot, P. (1985) J. Biol. Chem. 260, 3090-3096).