alpha-Crystallin, a major protein of all vertebrate lenses, consists of two subunits. alphaA and alphaB. which form polymeric aggregates with an average molecular mass of about 800 kDa. In thiS study. we ha e employed various biophysical methods to study aggregate sizes and conformational properties of purified alphaA. alphaB subunits. and cloned recombinant alphaB subunit. From far- and near-UV CD spectra, native alpha-, alphaA-. alphaB-, and recombinant alphaB-crystallins from porcine lenses all show similar beta-sheet conformation to that from bovine and human lenses as reported previously. By means of gel-filtration chromatography and dynamic light scattering, we have found that the molecular sizes of all four crystallin aggregates are polydispersedly distributed in the following order of aggregate sizes, i.e., native alpha > alphaA > alphaB approximate to recombinant alphaB. To investigate the structural and functional relationships, we have also compared the chaperone activities of all four a-crystallin aggregates at different temperatures. From the results of chaperone-activity assays, ANS (8-anilinonaphthalene-1-sulfonic acid) binding and thermal stability studies. there appeared to be at least two factors playing major roles in the chaperone-like activity of these lens proteins: one is the hydrophobicity of the exposed protein surface and the other is the structural stability associated with each protein. We showed that alphaA-crystallin is a better chaperone to protect gamma-crystallin against UV irradiation than alphaB-crystallin, in contrast to the observation that alphaB is generally a better chaperoning protein than alphaA for enzyme protective assays at physiological temperatures. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.