PURIFICATION OF 2 ISOFORMS OF HNRNP-U AND CHARACTERIZATION OF THEIR NUCLEIC-ACID BINDING-ACTIVITY

The scaffold attachment factor A (SAF-A; Romig et al., 1992), a human nuclear protein which specifically binds vertebrate SAR (scaffold attached region) DNA, is identical with hnRNP-U (Kiledjian and Dreyfuss, 1992). In this paper, we report on the purification of two forms of this protein that can be chromatographically separated. We show that the purified proteins represent two isoforms, form 1 and form 2 hnRNP-U, which differ in their primary structure. Both isoforms bind to double- and single-stranded DNA and RNA. In addition, they form higher ordered nucleic acid/protein complexes and specifically bind and aggregate the human SAR element MII at physiological ionic strengths. Electron microscopic analysis shows that the isoforms differ from each other, as form 1 hnRNP-U aggregates into long unbranched filamentous protein/DNA complexes whereas form 2 hnRNP-U aggregates as spheres with an average diameter of 35 nm.