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Advances in Brief |
Departments of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology [L. M., B. H. B. K., N. S., C. M. C.] and Pharmacology [C. M. C.], Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8103
| ABSTRACT |
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-inducible subunits LMP2 and LMP7. Moreover, the three major peptidolytic activities of the proteasome are inhibited by dihydroeponemycin at different rates. In addition, dihydroeponemycin-mediated proteasome inhibition induces a spindle-like cellular morphological change and apoptosis. These results validate the proteasome as a target for antitumor pharmacological intervention and are relevant for the design of novel chemotherapeutic strategies. | Introduction |
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B activation (4)
, and cell cycle progression (5)
. Because the proteasome is required for cell growth and division, it has been proposed that proteasome inhibition may serve as an antitumor therapy (6
, 7)
. Here, we provide proof of this concept through the identification of the proteasome as the intracellular target of a demonstrated antitumor agent, eponemycin. | Materials and Methods |
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Purification of Dihydroeponemycin Binding Proteins.
Ten liters of EL4 cells (1 x 106 cells/ml) were harvested and homogenized using a Tekmar Tissumizer homogenizer in 50 ml of lysis buffer [25 mM HEPES (pH 7.4), 5 mM EGTA, and 50 mM NaF] plus protease inhibitors (1 mM phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride and 10 µg/ml each leupeptin, pepstatin, and soybean trypsin inhibitor). After clarification at 100,000 x g for 1 h, the supernatant was loaded into a 1-ml streptavidin agarose column to remove endogenous biotinylated proteins. Dihydroeponemycin-biotin (8)
was subsequently added to the precleared solution at a final concentration of 8 µM. After a 2-h incubation at 4°C, the lysate was mixed for 10 min with 50 ml of DE52 beads preequilibrated with lysis buffer, subsequently washed twice with 50 ml lysis buffer containing 0.1 M NaCl, and then eluted with 50 ml of lysis buffer containing 0.3 mM NaCl. After SDS was added to a final concentration of 0.5%, the eluant was boiled for 10 min and diluted 2.5-fold with lysis buffer. The diluted solution was next loaded onto a 0.4-ml streptavidin-agarose column. The flow-through fraction was collected and reloaded onto the same column. This was repeated three times. After extensive washes, eponemycin-biotin binding proteins were eluted by boiling the streptavidin agarose in 0.4 ml of Laemmli sample buffer, and the purified protein complexes were separated by SDS-PAGE. Protein bands were excised and identified by the W. M. Keck Foundation Biotechnology Resource Laboratory (Yale University) using LCQ (mass spectrometry) and automated Edman degradation of internal tryptic peptides.
20S Proteasome Purification.
The bovine 20S proteasome complex was purified as described (9)
, with the following two modifications: (a) the lysis buffer used was 20 mM Tris-HCl (pH 7.5), 2 mM EGTA, 2 mM EDTA, and 0.25 M sucrose; and (b) proteins were eluted from the SP-Sepharose FF column (Pharmacia, Piscataway, NJ) with a 180-ml gradient of 02 M NaCl.
Murine spleen 20S proteasome was purified as following: 7 g of murine spleen were lysed in 35 ml of lysis buffer and clarified by centrifugation (100,000 x g, 1 h). The supernatant was further centrifuged for 5 h at 100,000 x g. The resulting pellet was resuspended in 10 ml of 50 mM Tris (pH 7.5) and clarified by centrifugation (20,000 x g, 20 min). The supernatant was loaded into a HR5/5 Mono Q column (Pharmacia) and eluted with a 40-ml gradient (00.8 M NaCl). Fractions containing proteasome activity, as monitored by Suc-LLVY-AMC hydrolysis, were pooled and loaded into a Superose 6 HR 10/30 gel filtration column (Pharmacia). Purified 20S proteasome was eluted with PBS and stored at 4°C.
Two-dimensional Gel Electrophoresis.
Purified mouse spleen proteasome was treated with 1 µM dihydroeponemycin-biotin for 3 h. Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis was performed using a Bio-Rad (Hercules, CA) mini-Protean II two-dimensional system, according to the manufacturers protocol. After transfer onto a PVDF membrane, biotin-labeled proteins were detected using enhanced chemiluminescence (Amersham, Arlington Heights, IL) and streptavidin-HRP. The same blot was treated with sodium azide to inhibit HRP activity and sequentially analyzed with anti-LMP2 and anti-LMP7 antibodies to confirm the identity of the biotinylated proteins.
Cell Morphological Assay.
BAECs were grown on 60-mm culture dishes to 70% confluence. Cells were incubated for 22 h in the presence or absence of dihydroeponemycin (4 µM). Photographs of cells morphology were taken at 100-fold magnification.
TUNEL Assay of Apoptotic Cells.
Assays were performed using the in situ cell death detection kit (Boehringer Mannheim) according to the manufacturers protocol. Apoptotic cells were detected by flow cytometric analysis (Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center Core Facility).
Proteasome Enzymatic Kinetics.
kassociation values were determined as follows. Inhibitors were mixed with a fluorogenic peptide substrate and assay buffer [20 mM Tris (pH 8.0), 0.5 mM EDTA, and 0.035% SDS] in a 96-well plate (SDS was omitted in assays for trypsin-like activity). The chymotrypsin-like, trypsin-like, and PGPH catalytic activities were assayed using the fluorogenic peptide substrates Suc-Leu-Leu-Val-Tyr-AMC and Z-Gly-Gly-Arg-AMC, Z-Leu-Leu-Glu-AMC, respectively. Hydrolysis was initiated by the addition of bovine 20S proteasome, and the reaction was followed by fluorescence (360-nm excitation/460-nm detection) using a fluorescence plate reader (Cytofluor II; PerSeptive Biosystems, Framingham, MA). Reactions were allowed to proceed for 50 min, and fluorescence data were collected every 15 s. Fluorescence was quantified as arbitrary units and progression curves were plotted for each reaction as a function of time. kobserved/[I] values were obtained using Kaleidograph by nonlinear least squares fit of the data to the following equation:
, where v0 and vs are the initial and final velocities, respectively, and kobserved is the reaction rate constant. The range of inhibitor concentrations tested was chosen so that several half-lives could be observed during the course of the measurement. Reactions were performed using inhibitor concentrations that were <100-fold of those of the proteasome assayed.
| Results and Discussion |
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Here, we identify these dihydroeponemycin targets after purification from the murine thymoma cell line EL4 using affinity chromatography. Pilot experiments failed to purify any dihydroeponemycin-protein adducts from a cellular lysate using avidin-agarose. However, avidin-HRP recognizes dihydroeponemycin-modified proteins when they are denatured and immobilized on a PVDF membrane (8)
. This suggested that, under nondenaturing conditions, the biotin moiety of the dihydroeponemycin-biotin adduct is inaccessible to avidin, possibly buried deep within a multiprotein complex. As hypothesized, denaturation of protein lysates with SDS after dihydroeponemycin-biotin incubation and subsequent dilution facilitated the purification of these two dihydroeponemycin binding proteins using an avidin-agarose affinity matrix. Following preparative denaturing gel electrophoresis and peptide sequencing of internal tryptic peptides, the major and minor dihydroeponemycin binding proteins were identified as the proteasomal ß catalytic subunits LMP2 and LMP7, respectively. This identification was confirmed by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and immunoblot analyses of dihydroeponemycin-biotin-modified proteins. Murine splenocyte lysates were incubated with dihydroeponemycin-biotin, electrophoresed, and transferred to a PVDF membrane. Subsequent probing with avidin-HRP revealed a major spot and a minor spot with apparent Mrs 22,000 and 23,000 (Fig. 1)
. These two-dimensional gel electrophoresis results correspond to the size and migration patterns of the murine LMP2 and LMP7 proteins (12)
. Furthermore, anti-LMP2 and anti-LMP7 antisera recognized spots of the same size and charge, thus confirming these biotinylated proteins as proteasome catalytic subunits (data not shown).
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Because dihydroeponemycin covalently binds to two proteasome catalytic subunits, we investigated the possibility that this compound could represent a family of proteasome inhibitors, different from those currently used. Enzymatic assays using fluorogenic substrates and 20S proteasome purified from bovine brain were performed in the presence of varying concentrations of dihydroeponemycin. Dihydroeponemycin was found to inhibit the proteasome potently, competitively, and irreversibly. Given the covalent and irreversible nature of dihydroeponemycins inhibitory activity, its rate of proteasome inactivation, kassociation (kobserved/[I]), was measured for different catalytic activities associated with the 20S proteasome. As shown in Table 1
, dihydroeponemycin inhibits the enzymatic activity of all three major activities (trypsin-like, chymotrypsin-like, and PGPH activity) but at different rates. Inhibition of the chymotrypsin-like activity and PGPH activity proceeded >10-fold faster than inhibition of the trypsin-like activity. Because dihydroeponemycin binds LMP2 and LMP7, these findings are consistent with the reported assignment of the PGPH and chymotrypsin-like activities to the LMP2 and LMP7 catalytic ß subunits of the proteasome, respectively (16)
. Interestingly, dihydroeponemycin inhibited PGPH activity at a rate an order of magnitude faster than two of the most potent proteasome inhibitors, the peptide vinyl sulfone NLVS, and lactacystin. Moreover, dihydroeponemycin does not inhibit the nonproteasomal proteases calpain and trypsin, although minor inhibition is observed against cathepsin B and chymotrypsin at higher concentrations of dihydroeponemycin (data not shown). The proteasome-inhibitory activity described here is consistent with the prior report of proteasome inhibition by a peptide containing an epoxyketone moiety similar to the active pharmacophore of dihydroeponemycin (17)
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To examine the biological consequences of proteasome inhibition by this natural product, dihydroeponemycin was added to BAECs at differing concentrations. After 22 h, control cells treated with vehicle alone exhibited a cobblestone-like morphology using phase-contrast microscopy, characteristic of endothelial cells in culture (Fig. 2a)
. However, dihydroeponemycin-treated cells displayed a dramatic morphological change. As shown in Fig. 2b
, a 22-h treatment with 4 µM dihydroeponemycin induced cells to become increasingly elongated, bipolar, and spindle-like in shape. In addition, many cells became round and highly refractile, detaching from the culture dish upon longer incubation. Although similar morphological changes have been observed upon inhibition of the chymotrypsin-like activity of the proteasome by lactacystin and peptide aldehyde inhibitors in neuroblastoma cells (18)
, to our knowledge, this is the first report of this phenomenon in nonneuronal cells.
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The results presented here suggest that targeting the proteasome is a valid antitumor strategy. Proteasome inhibition has already been shown to be an effective part of a combinatorial approach to killing cancer cells in vitro. Proteasome inhibition by peptide aldehyde or lactacystin addition greatly sensitizes human tumor cells to the cytotoxic action of tumor necrosis factor-
(22)
. Moreover, in the course of preparing this manuscript, it was reported that a single dose of a peptide aldehyde proteasome inhibitor prolonged the survival of severe combined immunodeficient mice injected with Burkitts lymphoma (23)
. This confirms the findings reported here and together suggest that proteasome inhibitors have a sufficient in vivo therapeutic index to warrant further development as antitumor agents. The identification of the 20S proteasome as the target for the potent antitumor agent dihydroeponemycin further confirms the proposed central role of the proteasome in cell cycle regulation and suggests that additional proteasome inhibitors may be effective antitumor agents.
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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| FOOTNOTES |
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1 This research was supported by NIH Grant CA74967-01. C. M. C. is a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Young Investigator and a Donaghue Foundation New Investigator. ![]()
2 To whom requests for reprints should be addressed, at Department of Developmental Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-81030. E-mail: craig.crews@yale.edu. ![]()
3 The abbreviations used are: HRP, horseradish peroxidase; AMC, 7-amido-4-methyl coumarin; NLVS, nitrophenol leucyl-leucyl-leucine vinyl sulfone; BAEC, bovine aortic endothelial cell; PVDF, polyvinylidene difluoride; TUNEL, terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick-end labeling; PGPH, peptidylglutamyl peptide-hydrolyzing. ![]()
Received 3/11/99. Accepted 4/28/99.
| REFERENCES |
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B1 precursor protein and the activation of NF-
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',ß'-epoxyketones as nanomolar inactivators of the proteasome. Tetrahedron Lett., 37: 1343-1346, 1996.
-initiated apoptosis. Br. J. Cancer, 77: 1103-1107, 1998.[Medline]
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