IDENTIFICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF THE SMALL NUCLEAR RIBONUCLEOPROTEIN PARTICLE-D' CORE PROTEIN

The addition of urea to sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)-polyacrylamide gels has allowed the identification and characterization of the small nuclear ribonucleoprotein particle (snRNP) D′ protein and has also improved resolution of the E, F, and G snRNP core proteins. In standard SDS-polyacrylamide gels, the D′ and D snRNP core proteins comigrate at approximately 16 kilodaltons. The addition of urea to the separating gel caused the D′ protein to shift to a slower electrophoretic mobility that is distinct from that of the D protein. The shift to a slower electrophoretic mobility in the presence of urea suggests that the D′ protein has extensive secondary structure that is not totally disrupted by SDS alone. Both N-terminal sequencing and partial peptide maps indicate that the D and D′ proteins are distinct gene products, and the sequence data have identified the faster moving of the two proteins as the previously cloned D protein (L. A. Rokeach, J. A. Haselby, and S. O. Hoch, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 85:4832-4836, 1988). In the cytoplasm, the D protein is found primarily in the small-nuclear-RNA-free 6S protein complexes, while the D′ protein is found primarily in the 20S protein complexes. Like the D protein, the D′ protein is an autoantigen in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus and is recognized by some of the Sm class of autoimmune antisera.