Resolution of Holliday junction analogs by T4 endonuclease VII can be directed by substrate structure

Endonuclease VII is an enzyme from bacteriophage T4 capable of resolving four-arm Holliday junction intermediates in recombination. Since natural Holliday junctions have homologous (2-fold) sequence symmetry, they can branch migrate, creating a population of substrates that have the branch point at different sites. We have explored the substrate requirements of endonuclease VII by using immobile analogs of Holliday junctions that lack this homology, thereby situating the branch point at a fixed site in the molecule. We have found that immobile junctions whose double-helical arms contain fewer than nine nucleotide pairs do not serve as substrates for resolution by endonuclease VII. Scission of substrates with 2-fold symmetrically elongated arms produces resolution products that are a function of the particular arms that are lengthened. We have confirmed that the scission products are those of resolution, rather than nicking of individual strands, by using shamrock junction molecules formed from a single oligonucleotide strand. A combination of end-labeled and internally labeled shamrock molecules has been used to demonstrate that all of the scission is due to coordinated cleavage of DNA on opposite sides of the junction, 3' to the branch point. Endonuclease VII is known to cleave the crossover strands of Holliday junctions in this fashion. The relationship of the long arms to the cleavage direction suggests that the portion of the enzyme which requires the minimum arm length interacts with the pair of arms containing the 3' portion of the crossover strands on the bound surface of the antiparallel junction.     

A protein with multiple heme-binding sites from rabbit serum

A 93,000 molecular weight protein (HBP.93) which binds hemin and protoporphyrin IX with high affinity has been isolated from rabbit serum using affinity chromatography on hemin-conjugated agarose. The amino acid composition of this protein is unique in that the proline and histidine contents are remarkably high (16.6 and 9.9 mol %, respectively). A large increase in the absorbance of the Soret region arises from the heme-protein interaction. The spectrophotometric titration showed that the protein can bind 25-35 mol of hemin/mol of protein. The apparent dissociation constant was estimated to be 1-4 X 10(-7) M for hemin at pH 7.4 and approximately 10(-6) M for protoporphyrin IX at pH 9.2. The similarity of the difference spectrum of heme-HBP.93 complex to that of heme-hemopexin complex suggests that a bisimidazol-type coordination of heme iron is involved in the binding. The extremely high capacity of HBP.93 to bind heme is also demonstrated by a large increase in the sedimentation velocity of the protein upon heme binding. The native heme-protein complex migrates faster than the heme-free protein in a polyacrylamide gel at pH 8.8; the increased mobility appears to be due to the charge on the carboxyl groups of the bound heme. Although the use of a hemin-agarose column has failed to reveal a protein of similar size and heme affinity in the sera of a number of other species, including man, the heme-binding properties and high histidine level of the human alpha 2-histidine-rich glycoprotein raise the possibility that the two proteins are related.     

Effects of net charge on the hydrogen-deuterium exchange parameters of lysozyme.

Possible effects of changes in net charge on protein hydrogen exchange rates were investigated by desalting hen egg-white lysozyme, which allowed its net charge to increase with decreasing pH in the acid region. Chloride ion-binding ratios, expressed as ratios of free to total Cl^?, were measured with a chloride-specific electrode at pH 5 on a 2.4% solution of a five-time-desalted product. This ratio was used to show a 97% reduction of the 11% Cl^? present in a commercial lysozyme preparation upon three passes of the enzyme through a column of ion-retardation resin. Net charges on the purified product were assigned from a combination of electrophoretic mobility and proton titration data gathered under minimal ionic strength conditions. The net charge on the desalted product increased by 1.64 units between pH 5.0 and 3.0. Hydrogendeuterium exchange studies on the purified lysozyme in D₂O were obtained using the near-infrared region of a Cary 14R spectrophotometer. The rate-pD profile for k₂, the rate constant for the intermediate class of exchanging hydrogens, showed a decrease in the apparent pD of minimum exchange rate of 0.3 units, when compared to that obtained earlier in 0.2 m added NaCl. However, the rate of exchange at pD minimum and the number of hydrogens in the class remained largely unaffected. A similar shift was observed for the rate-pD profile of the class 1 hydrogens. Thus, the effect of an increase in net positive charge is to shift the rate-pD profile to a lower pD. Moreover, the effect extended to the interior peptide hydrogens of this globular protein. Consequently, the exchange rates of all the observable hydrogens are altered by the net charge changes, and the effect appeared uniform. The shift can be accounted for quantitatively by applying electrostatic interaction terms to the acid and base catalytic constants characterizing the exchange process. The calculated electrostatic interaction factors in minimal salt and 0.2 m added NaCl were found to be 29 and 18% lower, respectively, than those obtained theoretically. Therefore, under conditions where changes in net charge may occur for a globular protein, the effect on hydrogen exchange rates can be estimated fairly well theoretically, especially at moderate ionic strengths.     

A novel family of mammalian taste receptors

In mammals, taste perception is a major mode of sensory input. We have identified a novel family of 40-80 human and rodent G protein-coupled receptors expressed in subsets of taste receptor cells of the tongue and palate epithelia. These candidate taste receptors (T2Rs) are organized in the genome in clusters and are genetically linked to loci that influence bitter perception in mice and humans. Notably, a single taste receptor cell expresses a large repertoire of T2Rs, suggesting that each cell may be capable of recognizing multiple tastants. T2Rs are exclusively expressed in taste receptor cells that contain the G protein alpha subunit gustducin, implying that they function as gustducin-linked receptors. In the accompanying paper, we demonstrate that T2Rs couple to gustducin in vitro, and respond to bitter tastants in a functional expression assay.     

Neutrophil Gelatinase-Associated Lipocalin (NGAL) Predicts Response to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy and Clinical Outcome in Primary Human Breast Cancer

In our previous work we showed that NGAL, a protein involved in the regulation of proliferation and differentiation, is overexpressed in human breast cancer (BC) and predicts poor prognosis. In neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) pathological complete response (pCR) is a predictor for outcome. The aim of this study was to evaluate NGAL as a predictor of response to NACT and to validate NGAL as a prognostic factor for clinical outcome in patients with primary BC. Immunohistochemistry was performed on tissue microarrays from 652 core biopsies from BC patients, who underwent NACT in the GeparTrio trial. NGAL expression and intensity was evaluated separately. NGAL was detected in 42.2% of the breast carcinomas in the cytoplasm. NGAL expression correlated with negative hormone receptor (HR) status, but not with other baseline parameters. NGAL expression did not correlate with pCR in the full population, however, NGAL expression and staining intensity were significantly associated with higher pCR rates in patients with positive HR status. In addition, strong NGAL expression correlated with higher pCR rates in node negative patients, patients with histological grade 1 or 2 tumors and a tumor size <40 mm. In univariate survival analysis, positive NGAL expression and strong staining intensity correlated with decreased disease-free survival (DFS) in the entire cohort and different subgroups, including HR positive patients. Similar correlations were found for intense staining and decreased overall survival (OS). In multivariate analysis, NGAL expression remained an independent prognostic factor for DFS. The results show that in low-risk subgroups, NGAL was found to be a predictive marker for pCR after NACT. Furthermore, NGAL could be validated as an independent prognostic factor for decreased DFS in primary human BC.