The [H-3]tetradecylglycidyl-CoA (TDG-CoA)-binding protein (M(r) approx. 88 000) of purified outer membranes from rat liver mitochondria was identified by SDS/PAGE. The region in which it migrated was shown to contain another protein which stained strongly with periodic acid-Schiff reagent and could be removed from membrane extracts by incubation with Sepharose-concanavalin A. Amounts of TDG-CoA-binding protein were prepared from lectin-treated extracts using preparative SDS/PAGE and used to raise a polyclonal antibody in a sheep. The IgG fraction purified from this antiserum reacted strongly with a protein of M(r) approximately 88 000 on Western blots, and much more weakly with two other proteins of M(r) approximately 76 000 and M(r) approximately 53 000 in extracts of rat liver mitochondrial outer membranes. The crude IgG fraction and immunopurified IgG both removed carnitine palmitoyltransferase (CPT) I activity from very pure outer membrane extracts, suggesting that the TDG-CoA-binding protein against which the antiserum was raised also expresses CPT I activity. This was confirmed by the demonstration of a strong positive correlation between CPT I activity and the amount of immunoreactive protein of M(r) approximately 88 000 in mitochondria prepared from rats in different physiological states. By contrast, the antibody did not react with CPT II either in mitochondria or in purified form. Similarly, an anti-(CPT II) antibody did not cross-react with CPT I on Western blots, proving conclusively that CPT I and CPT II are immunologically distinct proteins, as well as being of different functional molecular sizes [Zammit, Corstorphine & Kelliher (1988) Biochem. J. 250, 415-420]. Immunoblots of mitochondrial proteins obtained from different tissues indicated that, of the rat tissues tested, only kidney cortex mitochondria contain the same isoform of CPT I as that in liver. Heart, skeletal muscle and brown adipose tissue mitochondria contain a slightly smaller isoform which was only weakly reactive with anti-(rat liver CPT I) antibody, indicating that these tissues contain a molecularly quite distinct isoenzyme. This would explain the previous observations that CPT I in these tissues has markedly different kinetic characteristics from the isoenzyme present in liver mitochondria.
