Purification and properties of some unique low molecular weight basic proteins degraded during germination of Bacillus megaterium spores.

Two major proteins, termed proteins A and B, and one minor species, termed protein C, have been purified to homogeneity from dilute acid extracts of dormant spores of Bacillus megaterium. These three species comprise approximately 80% of the protein in the dilute acid extracts and account for 60 to 75% of the protein degraded during spore germination. All three proteins have low molecular weights (7,000 to 10,000), high isoelectric points (greater than 9.8), alanine as the NH2-terminal amino acid, are more hydrophilic than most proteins, and all lack cysteine, cystine, and tryptophan. In addition all three proteins are extremely sensitive to a wide variety of proteolytic enzymes, much more so than "average" proteins such as serum albumin, lysozyme, and hemoglobin. These proteins also bind to both purified DNA and to a nuclear body from dormant spores. Although this binding gives little or no protection to proteins A and B from proteolysis, it does result in elevation of the melting temperature of the DNA by as much as 20degrees.