Mw. Nickells et al., CHARACTERIZATION OF DAF-2, A HIGH-MOLECULAR-WEIGHT FORM OF DECAY-ACCELERATING FACTOR (DAF-CD55), AS A COVALENTLY CROSS-LINKED DIMER OF DAF-1, The Journal of immunology, 152(2), 1994, pp. 676-685
Human E express two surface forms of decay-accelerating factor (DAF; C
D55). On SDS-PAGE under reducing conditions the major form, DAF-1, mig
rates as a 70-kDa protein and the minor form, DAF-2, present at <10% t
he amount of DAF-1, migrates as a 140-kDa protein (Kinoshita, T., S. I
. Rosenfeld, and V. Nussenzweig. 1987. J. Immunol. 138.2994). Both for
ms possess decay-accelerating activity and, after purification from so
lubilized E, reinsert into sheep E, indicating a glycosylphosphatidyli
nositol anchor. In contrast to human cells, these two forms of DAF fro
m orangutan E are expressed in approximately equal amounts (Nickells,
M. W., and J. P. Atkinson. 1990. J. Immunol. 144.4262). An orangutan B
lymphocyte cell line, CP81, also expresses similar quantities of both
forms. These sources of orangutan DAF were utilized for further chara
cterization of DAF-2. Orangutan and human DAF-1 were 98% and 95% homol
ogous at the nucleotide and amino acid levels, respectively. Northern
and Southern analyses of orangutan DAF were also similar to those for
human DAF. Tryptic peptide maps of DAF-1 and DAF-2 were identical. Aft
er treatment with phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C and gl
ycosidases, the change in M(r) of DAF-2 was consistent with it possess
ing two glycosylphosphatidylinositol anchors and twice as much oligosa
ccharide as DAF-1. Biosynthetic analysis demonstrated a single 46-kDa
precursor for both forms. Taken together, these data indicate that DAF
-2 is a covalently cross-linked dimer of DAF-1. Analysis of a series o
f human DAF deletion mutants localized the cross-link(s) within the sh
ort consensus repeat domains.