Identification of Different Quaternary Structures of Beef Heart Cytochrome-c Oxidase by Two-dimensional Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis

A two-dimensional gel electrophoresis is described to identify different quaternary structures of the heart cytochrome-c oxidase. Bovine enzyme was purified and separated by discontinuous gradient polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis under nondenaturing conditions in the 1st dimension into several discrete complexes and thereupon shown to be heterodisperse in Triton X-100 and dodecyl maltoside. A discontinuous SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis in the 2nd dimension was used to determine the subunit composition of the isolated complexes. One of these represents the intact enzyme with 12 different polypeptides while the others have an incomplete subunit composition.