Kinetics of human peptidylarginine deiminase 2 (hPAD2) — Reduction of Ca2+ dependence by phospholipids and assessment of proposed inhibition by paclitaxel side chains

2008 ◽  
Vol 86 (5) ◽  
pp. 437-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdiwahab A. Musse ◽  
Eugenia Polverini ◽  
Reinout Raijmakers ◽  
George Harauz

Multiple sclerosis is a complex human neurodegenerative disease, characterized by the active destruction of the insulating myelin sheath around the axons in the central nervous system. The physical deterioration of myelin is mediated by hyperdeimination of myelin basic and other proteins, catalysed by the Ca2+-dependent enzyme peptidylarginine deiminase 2 (PAD2). Thus, inhibition of PAD2 may be of value in treatment of this disease. Here, we have first characterized the in vitro kinetic properties of the human peptidylarginine deiminase isoform 2 (hPAD2). Phosphatidylserine and phosphatidylcholine reduced its Ca2+ dependence by almost twofold. Second, we have explored the putative inhibitory action of the methyl ester side chain of paclitaxel (TSME), which shares structural features with a synthetic PAD substrate, viz., the benzoyl-l-arginine ethyl ester (BAEE). Using the known crystallographic structure of the homologous enzyme hPAD4 and in silico molecular docking, we have shown that TSME interacted strongly with the catalytic site, albeit with a 100-fold lower affinity than BAEE. Despite paclitaxel having previously been shown to inhibit hPAD2 in vitro, the side chain of paclitaxel alone did not inhibit this enzyme’s activity.

1989 ◽  
Vol 37 (9) ◽  
pp. 1449-1454 ◽  
Author(s):  
J S Meyer ◽  
J Nauert ◽  
S Koehm ◽  
J Hughes

We labeled active S-phase cells in primary breast carcinomas with a modified 5-bromo-2'-deoxyuridine (BrdU) procedure using a silver-enhanced colloidal gold visualization step. Separate samples of 29 tumors were labeled with BrdU or tritiated thymidine ([3H]-dThd), and the labeling indices (LI) from the two methods were equivalent (Spearman's correlation coefficient = 0.96). Three breast carcinomas were incubated in various mixes of both BrdU and [3H]-dThd and developed sequentially for each. Paired photomicrographs showed that the same nuclei were labeled by either precursor. The in vitro method yielded LIs similar to those reported after in vivo pulse BrdU labeling for tumors of the central nervous system. The BrdU LI correlated significantly (r = 0.76, p less than 0.001) with % S-phase by DNA flow cytometry in 33 breast carcinomas. The BrdU labeling method is simpler and more rapid than the [3H]-dThd procedure (1-2 days for completion for the former, 7-10 days for the latter), and it provides an equivalent measurement of proliferative index.


Parasitology ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 111 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. M. B. Saraiva ◽  
P. F. P. Pimenta ◽  
T. N. Brodin ◽  
E. Rowton ◽  
G. B. Modi ◽  
...  

SUMMARYStage-specific molecular and morphogenic markers were used to follow the kinetics of appearance, number, and position of metacyclic promastigotes developing during the course ofL. majorinfection in a natural vector,Phlebotomus papatasi. Expression of surface lipophosphoglycan (LPG) on transformed promastigotes was delayed until the appearance of nectomonad forms on day 3, and continued to be abundantly expressed by all promastigotes thereafter. An epitope associate with arabinose substitution of LPG side-chain oligosaccharides, identified by its differential expression by metacyclics invitro, was detected on the surface of a low proportion of midgut promastigotes beginning on day 5, and on up to 60% of promatigotes on days 10 and 15. In contrast 100% of the parasites egested from the mouthparts during forced feeding of 15 day infected flies stained strongly for this epitope. At each time-point, the surface expression of the modified LPG was restricted to morphologically distinguished metacyclic forms. Ultrastructural study of the metacyclic surface revealed an approximate 2-fold increase in the thickness of the surface coat compared to nectomonad forms, suggesting elongation of LPG as occurs during metacyclogenesisin vitro. A metacyclic-associated transcript (MAT-1), another marker identified by its differential expression invitro, also showed selective expression by promastigotes in the fly, and was used inin situhybridization studies to demonstrate the positioning of metacyclics in the anterior gut.


2007 ◽  
Vol 293 (3) ◽  
pp. H1508-H1517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arlin B. Blood ◽  
Gordon G. Power

Growing evidence suggests that nitrite, acting via reduction to nitric oxide by deoxyhemoglobin, may play an important role in local control of blood flow during hypoxia. To investigate the effect of hypoxia (65 Torr arterial Po2) on the kinetic properties of nitrite, a bolus injection of sodium nitrite (10 mg/kg iv) was given to normoxic or hypoxic newborn lambs, and the time course of plasma nitrite and methemoglobin (MetHb) concentrations was measured. The in vivo kinetics of nitrite disappearance from plasma were biphasic and were not affected by hypoxia. Changes in MetHb, a product of the nitrite-hemoglobin reaction, also did not differ with the level of oxygenation. Hypoxia potentiated the hypotensive effects of nitrite on pulmonary and systemic arterial pressures. The disappearance of nitrite from plasma was equivalent to the increase in MetHb on a molar basis. In contrast, nitrite metabolism in sheep blood in vitro resulted in more than one MetHb per nitrite equivalent under mid- and high-oxygenation conditions: oxyhemoglobin (HbO2) saturation = 50.3 ± 1.7% and 97.0 ± 1.3%, respectively. Under the low-oxygenation condition (HbO2 saturation = 5.2 ± 0.9%), significantly less than 1 mol of MetHb was produced per nitrite equivalent, indicating that a significant portion of nitrite is metabolized through pathways that do not produce MetHb. These data support the idea that the vasodilating effects of nitrite are potentiated under hypoxic conditions due to the reduction of nitrite to nitric oxide by deoxyhemoglobin.


2018 ◽  
Vol 85 ◽  
pp. 343-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ping Li ◽  
Sushil Dhital ◽  
Bin Zhang ◽  
Xiaowei He ◽  
Xiong Fu ◽  
...  

1990 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Burston ◽  
D. M. Matthews

1. This paper reports a comparison of the kinetics of influx into hamster jejunum of a series of dipeptides of neutral, basic and acidic amino acids, and a tripeptide of neutral amino acids, with those of corresponding free amino acids. 2. Kt, the substrate concentration at which the transport rate is half the maximal transport rate, and Vmax, the maximal transport rate, were more similar from one peptide to another than among amino acids, with the result that, over a wide range of concentrations, rates of influx of individual peptides varied much less than those of amino acids. 3. It is suggested that this may account for the rates of absorption of amino acids being closely related to the amino acid composition of the protein fed, instead of being widely dissimilar as with corresponding mixtures of free amino acids. 4. With neutral amino acids, both Kt and Vmax. fell with increasing length of the side-chain, as observed on many previous occasions. This did not occur with the corresponding homologous dipeptides, which shows that the hypothesis that the apparent affinity for transport is related to the lipophilic properties of the side-chain cannot be applied to peptides.


2017 ◽  
Vol 474 (6) ◽  
pp. 939-955 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandra Astegno ◽  
Elena Maresi ◽  
Mariarita Bertoldi ◽  
Valentina La Verde ◽  
Alessandro Paiardini ◽  
...  

Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan parasite of medical and veterinary relevance responsible for toxoplasmosis in humans. As an efficacious vaccine remains a challenge, chemotherapy is still the most effective way to combat the disease. In search of novel druggable targets, we performed a thorough characterization of the putative pyridoxal 5′-phosphate (PLP)-dependent enzyme ornithine aminotransferase from T. gondii ME49 (TgOAT). We overexpressed the protein in Escherichia coli and analysed its molecular and kinetic properties by UV-visible absorbance, fluorescence and CD spectroscopy, in addition to kinetic studies of both the steady state and pre-steady state. TgOAT is largely similar to OATs from other species regarding its general transamination mechanism and spectral properties of PLP; however, it does not show a specific ornithine aminotransferase activity like its human homologue, but exhibits both N-acetylornithine and γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) transaminase activity in vitro, suggesting a role in both arginine and GABA metabolism in vivo. The presence of Val79 in the active site of TgOAT in place of Tyr, as in its human counterpart, provides the necessary room to accommodate N-acetylornithine and GABA, resembling the active site arrangement of GABA transaminases. Moreover, mutation of Val79 to Tyr results in a change of substrate preference between GABA, N-acetylornithine and L-ornithine, suggesting a key role of Val79 in defining substrate specificity. The findings that TgOAT possesses parasite-specific structural features as well as differing substrate specificity from its human homologue make it an attractive target for anti-toxoplasmosis inhibitor design that can be exploited for chemotherapeutic intervention.


2020 ◽  
pp. jbc.RA120.015272
Author(s):  
Sean M. Quinn ◽  
Troy Vargason ◽  
Nilisha Pokhrel ◽  
Edwin Antony ◽  
Juergen Hahn ◽  
...  

Heterodimeric KIF3AC is a mammalian kinesin-2 that is highly expressed in the central nervous system and is associated with vesicles in neurons. KIF3AC is an intriguing member of the kinesin-2 family because the intrinsic kinetics of KIF3A and KIF3C when expressed as homodimers and analyzed in vitro are distinctively different from each other. For example, the single-molecule velocities of the engineered homodimers KIF3AA and KIF3CC are 293 nm/s and 7.5 nm/s, respectively, whereas KIF3AC has a velocity of 186 nm/s. These results led us to hypothesize that heterodimerization alters the intrinsic catalytic properties of the two heads, and an earlier computational analysis predicted that processive steps would alternate between a fast step for KIF3A followed by a slow step for KIF3C resulting in asymmetric stepping. To test this hypothesis directly, we measured the presteady-state kinetics of phosphate release for KIF3AC, KIF3AA, and KIF3CC followed by computational modeling of the KIF3AC phosphate release transients. The results reveal that KIF3A and KIF3C retain their intrinsic ATP binding and hydrolysis kinetics. Yet within KIF3AC, KIF3A activates the rate of phosphate release for KIF3C such that the coupled steps of phosphate release and dissociation from the microtubule become more similar for KIF3A and KIF3C. These coupled steps are the rate-limiting transition for the ATPase cycle suggesting that within KIF3AC, the stepping kinetics are similar for each head during the processive run. Future work will be directed to define how these properties enable KIF3AC to achieve its physiological functions.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaraslau Dzichenka ◽  
◽  
Michail Shapira ◽  
Sergei Usanov ◽  
Marina Savić ◽  
...  

Our in vitro studies showed that a couple of perspective steroidal derivatives showed previously biomedical potential via enzyme inhibition, receptor binding or antiproliferative effect against the cancer cells of reproductive tissues are able to bind to human CYP7 enzymes – key enzymes taking part in hydroxylation of cholesterol, 25-, 27-hydroxycholesterol and a number of steroidal hormones. In silico screening of binding affinity of the modified steroids toward CYP7 enzymes showed that interaction energy for the new ligands is comparable with consequent values, calculated for the ‘essential’ substrates of the enzymes – cholestenone (CYP7A1) and DHEA (CYP7B1). However, no correlation between binding energy and the affinity of the ligand was found. Novel ligands interact with conserved amino acids taking part in stabilization of natural substrates of CYP7 enzymes. A couple of structural features, governing ligand binding, were identified. Among which are planar structure of A-ring for CYP7A1 ligands, absence of many polar fragments in side-chain and presence of polar group at C3 position. Analysis of the docking results showed that CYP7B1 higher selectivity in comparison with CYP7A1 is connected by the structure of the cavity formed by α-helices I and B`. The data obtained will be used for the explanation of ligand specificity of human sterol- hydroxylases.


Author(s):  
Godfrey C. Hoskins ◽  
Betty B. Hoskins

Metaphase chromosomes from human and mouse cells in vitro are isolated by micrurgy, fixed, and placed on grids for electron microscopy. Interpretations of electron micrographs by current methods indicate the following structural features.Chromosomal spindle fibrils about 200Å thick form fascicles about 600Å thick, wrapped by dense spiraling fibrils (DSF) less than 100Å thick as they near the kinomere. Such a fascicle joins the future daughter kinomere of each metaphase chromatid with those of adjacent non-homologous chromatids to either side. Thus, four fascicles (SF, 1-4) attach to each metaphase kinomere (K). It is thought that fascicles extend from the kinomere poleward, fray out to let chromosomal fibrils act as traction fibrils against polar fibrils, then regroup to join the adjacent kinomere.


Author(s):  
Beverly E. Maleeff ◽  
Timothy K. Hart ◽  
Stephen J. Wood ◽  
Ronald Wetzel

Alzheimer's disease is characterized post-mortem in part by abnormal extracellular neuritic plaques found in brain tissue. There appears to be a correlation between the severity of Alzheimer's dementia in vivo and the number of plaques found in particular areas of the brain. These plaques are known to be the deposition sites of fibrils of the protein β-amyloid. It is thought that if the assembly of these plaques could be inhibited, the severity of the disease would be decreased. The peptide fragment Aβ, a precursor of the p-amyloid protein, has a 40 amino acid sequence, and has been shown to be toxic to neuronal cells in culture after an aging process of several days. This toxicity corresponds to the kinetics of in vitro amyloid fibril formation. In this study, we report the biochemical and ultrastructural effects of pH and the inhibitory agent hexadecyl-N-methylpiperidinium (HMP) bromide, one of a class of ionic micellar detergents known to be capable of solubilizing hydrophobic peptides, on the in vitro assembly of the peptide fragment Aβ.


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