Porcine Sugar Nucleotide: Glycoprotein Glycosyltransferases. I. Blood Serum and Liver Sialyltransferase

Abstract

The properties of CMP-N acetylneuraminic acid: glycoprotein sialyltransferase have been studied in pork serum, a crude pork liver homogenate, and a soluble acetone powder extract prepared from pork liver. Whereas the crude liver homogenate enzyme is activated by the detergent Triton X-100, this detergent has no effect on the activities of either serum or acetone powder extract; since high-speed centrifugation does not sediment the enzyme activities of the latter two preparations, it is concluded that they are soluble. Comparison of the membrane-bound and soluble liver enzymes indicates that the membrane modifies kinetic behavior only to a limited extent. In both liver and serum, a single sialyltransferase is responsible for incorporation of sialic acid into α₁-acid glycoprotein, fetuin, and N-acetyllactosamine, and sialic acid incorporation occurs whenever a terminal galactose linked (β, 1 → 4) to a penultimate N-acetylglucosamine is presented to the enzyme. Although the serum enzyme resembles the liver enzyme, both the source and function of serum sialyltransferase are unknown.