Analysis of amyloid-like secondary structure in the Cryab-R120G knock-in mouse model of hereditary cataracts by two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy

αB-crystallin is a small heat shock protein that forms a heterooligomeric complex with αA-crystallin in the ocular lens. It is also widely distributed in tissues throughout the body and has been linked with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, where it is associated with amyloid fibrils. Crystallins can form amorphous aggregates in cataracts as well as more structured amyloid-like fibrils. The arginine 120 to glycine (R120G) mutation in αB-crystallin (Cryab-R120G) results in high molecular weight crystallin protein aggregates and loss of the chaperone activity of the protein in vitro, and it is associated with human hereditary cataracts and myopathy. Characterizing the amorphous (unstructured) versus the highly ordered (amyloid fibril) nature of crystallin aggregates is important in understanding their role in disease and important to developing pharmacological treatments for cataracts. We investigated protein secondary structure in wild-type (WT) and Cryab-R120G knock-in mutant mouse lenses using two-dimensional infrared (2DIR) spectroscopy, which has been used to detect amyloid-like fibrils in human lenses and measure UV radiation-induced changes in porcine lenses. Our goal was to compare the aggregated proteins in this mouse lens model to human lenses and evaluate the protein structural relevance of the Cryab-R120G knock-in mouse model to general age-related cataract disease. In the 2DIR spectra, amide I diagonal peak frequencies were red-shifted to smaller wavenumbers in mutant mouse lenses as compared to WT mouse lenses, consistent with an increase in ordered secondary structure. The cross peak frequency and intensity indicated the presence of amyloid in the mutant mouse lenses. While the diagonal and cross peak changes in location and intensity from the 2DIR spectra indicated significant structural differences between the wild type and mutant mouse lenses, these differences were smaller than those found in human lenses; thus, the Cryab-R120G knock-in mouse lenses contain less amyloid-like secondary structure than human lenses. The results of the 2DIR spectroscopy study confirm the presence of amyloid-like secondary structure in Cryab-R120G knock-in mice with cataracts and support the use of this model to study age-related cataract.

Spontaneous protein-protein crosslinking at glutamine and glutamic acid residues in long-lived proteins.

Long-lived proteins (LLPs) are susceptible to the accumulation of both enzymatic and spontaneous post-translational modifications (PTMs). A prominent PTM observed in LLPs is covalent protein-protein crosslinking. In this study we examined aged human lenses and found several proteins to be crosslinked at Glu and Gln residues. This new covalent bond involves the amino group of Lys or an α-amino group. A number of these crosslinks were found in intermediate filament proteins. Such crosslinks could be reproduced experimentally by incubation of Glu- or Gln-containing peptides and their formation were consistent with an amino group attacking a glutarimide intermediate. These findings show that both Gln and Glu residues can act as sites for spontaneous covalent cross-linking in LLPs and they provide a mechanistic explanation for an otherwise puzzling observation, that a major fraction of Aβ in the human brain is crosslinked via Glu 22 and the N-terminal amino group.

Ceridwen Dovey’s Only the Animals and the Politics of Re-interventions on Anthropocentrism

This article ascertains how Ceridwen Dovey’s Only the Animals (2014) aligns with interdisciplinary studies which critique anthropocentric binaries of human-nonhuman relationships. Drawing on a critical analysis of the selected stories of the book, this article attempts a broader study of Dovey’s book. Dovey’s ten stories are, as the article argues, a radical re-narrativisation against human-nonhuman binaries lying in the creative-cultural human world. It also sees the book as a subversive interrogation of human superiority. The ten animals of this book, then, are not mere metaphoric or symbolic embodiments of human sufferings, rather they represent an autonomous world of beings. These beings, as Dovey projects, challenge the human world’s cultural and creative ways of using and subjugating nonhuman beings to consolidate a human-centric world system. This article hinges on this aspect of the assertive nonhuman identity vis-à-vis the human identity, in particular, and then theoretically underpins Dovey’s book’s significance through some ecocritical and post-human lenses.

Cataract-Associated New Mutants S175G/H181Q of βΒ2-Crystallin and P24S/S31G of γD-Crystallin Are Involved in Protein Aggregation by Structural Changes

β/γ-Crystallins, the main structural protein in human lenses, have highly stable structure for keeping the lens transparent. Their mutations have been linked to cataracts. In this study, we identified 10 new mutations of β/γ-crystallins in lens proteomic dataset of cataract patients using bioinformatics tools. Of these, two double mutants, S175G/H181Q of βΒ2-crystallin and P24S/S31G of γD-crystallin, were found mutations occurred in the largest loop linking the distant β-sheets in the Greek key motif. We selected these double mutants for identifying the properties of these mutations, employing biochemical assay, the identification of protein modifications with nanoUPLC-ESI-TOF tandem MS and examining their structural dynamics with hydrogen/deuterium exchange-mass spectrometry (HDX-MS). We found that both double mutations decrease protein stability and induce the aggregation of β/γ-crystallin, possibly causing cataracts. This finding suggests that both the double mutants can serve as biomarkers of cataracts.

Cataract-associated New Mutants S175G/H181Q of βB2-Crystallin and P24S/S31G of γD-Crystallin are Involved in Protein aggregation by Structural Changes

ABSTRACTβ/γ-Crystallins, the main structural protein in human lenses, have highly stable structure for keeping the lens transparent. Their mutations have been linked to congenital cataracts. In this study, we identified 10 new mutations of β/γ-crystallins in lens proteomic dataset of cataract patients using bioinformatic tools. Of these, two double mutants, S175G/H181Q of βΒ2-crystallin and P24S/S31G of γD-crystallin, were found mutations occurred in the largest loop linking the distant β-sheets in the Greek key motif. We selected these double mutants for identifying the properties of these mutations, employing biochemical assay, the identification of protein modifications with nanoUPLC-ESI-TOF tandem MS and examining their structural dynamics with hydrogen/deuterium exchange-mass spectrometry (HDX-MS). We found that both double mutations decrease protein stability and induce the aggregation of β/γ-crystallin, possibly causing cataracts. This finding suggests that both the double mutants can serve as biomarkers of congenital cataracts.