ISOLATION OF INTACT TRANSITION PROTEIN-2 WITH 3 ZINC-FINGER MOTIFS FROM BOAR LATE SPERMATID NUCLEI

Boar intact transition protein 2, TP2, was isolated from the late sper matid nuclei by chromatography on Fractogel EMD SO3- 650 (M), and HPLC s on Nucleosil 300 7C18, Diol-120 and Chemcosorb 3C18H. CD spectroscop y study showed that TP2 underwent a small but significant zinc depende nt secondary structural change. TP2, having three potential zinc finge r motifs, was shown to be contain 3 atoms of zinc bound per molecule o f the protein by atomic absorption spectroscopy. These results togethe r with the amino acid sequence of TP2 suggest that TP2 is a zinc metal loprotein with three zinc finger structures.