ADAM19 autolysis is activated by LPS and promotes non-classical secretion of cysteine-rich protein 2

ADAM family proteins are type I transmembrane, zinc-dependent metalloproteases. This family has multiple conserved domains, including a signal peptide, a pro-domain, a metalloprotease domain, a disintegrin (DI) domain, a cysteine-rich (Cys) domain, an EGF-like domain, a transmembrane domain, and a cytoplasmic domain. The Cys and DI domains may play active roles in regulating proteolytic activity or substrate specificity. ADAM19 has an autolytic processing activity within its Cys domain, and the processing is necessary for its proteolytic activity. To identify a new physiological function of ADAM19, we screened for associating proteins by using the extracellular domain of ADAM19 in a yeast two-hybrid system. Cysteine-rich protein 2 (CRIP2) showed an association with ADAM19 through its DI and Cys domains. Sequence analysis revealed that CRIP2 is a secretable protein without a classical signal. CRIP2 secretion was increased by overexpression of ADAM19 and decreased by suppression of ADAM19 expression. Moreover, CRIP2 secretion increased in parallel with the autolytic processing of ADAM19 stimulated by lipopolysaccharide. These findings suggest that ADAM19 autolysis is activated by lipopolysaccharide and that ADAM19 promotes the secretion of CRIP2.     

P450 in wild animals as a biomarker of environmental impact

The impact of environmental pollution on selected animals was tested by monitoring the hepatic content of cytochromes P450 and their enzyme activities or by calculating TEQ values from the concentration of pollutants in the body. Fish-eating Stellars Sea Eagles, Haliaeetus pelagicus, found dead in the northern part of Hokkaido island accumulated high levels of PCBs and DDT and metabolites. The TEQ values calculated from the PCB concentration in the eagles were high enough to cause a significant toxic effect in other birds living in the same environment. Some of these birds were also contaminated with high concentrations of lead. Spotted seals, Phoca largha, captured along the coast-line of Hokkaido accumulated PCBs in their fat at about 100 million times the concentrations in the surface sea water. The levels of expressions of hepatic microsomal CYP 1A1and related enzyme activities in these seals showed good correlation to the levels of PCBs accumulated in the fat. The fresh water crabs, Eriocheir japonicus, were captured from three different rivers with various degrees of pollution. The P450 content and the related enzyme activities showed good correlation to TEQ values obtained from the concentrations of PCBs and PCDDs in the crabs from the rivers. The wild rodents, Clethrionomys rufocanus, were captured from urban, agricultural, and forest areas in Hokkaido. Those from the forest area had the lowest CYP content and related enzyme activities, comparable to those in laboratory-raised animals. Those from the urban areas, presumably contaminated with PAHs from fuel combustion, showed increased CYP 1A1 content and related enzyme activities. Those from the agricultural areas showed increased levels of CYP 1A1, 2B, 2E1. Rats treated with some of the agrochemicals used in the area resulted in a similar pattern of induction. It is concluded that P450 can be a useful biomarker for assessing the environmental impact of chemical pollutants on wild animals.     

Development of an ultrasensitive immunoassay using affinity maturated antibodies for the measurement of rodent insulin

The measurement of plasma insulin is important for clinical diagnosis of diabetes and for preclinical research of metabolic diseases, especially in rodent models used in drug discovery research for type 2 diabetes. Fasting immunoreactive insulin (F-IRI) concentrations are used to calculate the homeostasis model assessment ratio (HOMA-R), an index of insulin sensitivity. However, even the most sensitive commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits cannot measure the very low F-IRI concentrations in normal rats and mice. Therefore, we sought to develop a new rodent insulin ELISA with greater sensitivity for low F-IRI concentrations. Despite repeated efforts, high-affinity antibodies could not be generated by immunizing mice with mouse insulin (self-antigen). Therefore, we generated two weak monoclonal antibodies (13G4 and 26B2) that were affinity maturated and used to develop a highly sensitive ELISA. The measurement range of the sandwich ELISA with the affinity maturated antibodies (13G4m1 and 26B2m1) was 1.5 to 30,000 pg/ml, and its detection limit was at least 10 times lower than those of commercially available kits. In conclusion, we describe the development of a new ultrasensitive ELISA suitable for measuring very low plasma insulin concentrations in rodents. This ELISA might be very useful in drug discovery research in diabetes.     

Release of transforming plasmid DNA from actively growing genetically engineered Escherichia coli

We studied the transforming ability of the extracellular plasmid DNA released from a genetically engineered Escherichia coli pEGFP and the culturing conditions for the release of transforming DNA. The transforming ability was evaluated by transformation of competent cells with filtrates of E. coli pEGFP cultures. The number of transformants increased with time when E. coli pEGFP cells grew exponentially in rich medium, but not in stationary phase or when inoculated in freshwater. These results suggested that crude extracellular plasmid DNA had transforming ability and this transforming DNA was mainly released by actively growing bacteria.     

Influence of the PsbA1/PsbA3, Ca(2+)/Sr(2+) and Cl(-)/Br(-) exchanges on the redox potential of the primary quinone Q(A) in Photosystem II from Thermosynechococcus elongatus as revealed by spectroelectrochemistry

Ca(2+) and Cl(-) ions are essential elements for the oxygen evolution activity of photosystem II (PSII). It has been demonstrated that these ions can be exchanged with Sr(2+) and Br(-), respectively, and that these ion exchanges modify the kinetics of some electron transfer reactions at the Mn?Ca cluster level (Ishida et al., J. Biol. Chem. 283 (2008) 13330-13340). It has been proposed from thermoluminescence experiments that the kinetic effects arise, at least in part, from a decrease in the free energy level of the Mn(4)Ca cluster in the S? state though some changes on the acceptor side were also observed. Therefore, in the present work, by using thin-layer cell spectroelectrochemistry, the effects of the Ca(2+)/Sr(2+) and Cl(-)/Br(-) exchanges on the redox potential of the primary quinone electron acceptor Q(A), E(m)(Q(A)/Q(A)(-)), were investigated. Since the previous studies on the Ca(2+)/Sr(2+) and Cl(-)/Br(-) exchanges were performed in PsbA3-containing PSII purified from the thermophilic cyanobacterium Thermosynechococcus elongatus, we first investigated the influences of the PsbA1/PsbA3 exchange on E(m)(Q(A)/Q(A)(-)). Here we show that i) the E(m)(Q(A)/Q(A)(-)) was up-shifted by ca. +38mV in PsbA3-PSII when compared to PsbA1-PSII and ii) the Ca(2+)/Sr(2+) exchange up-shifted the E(m)(Q(A)/Q(A)(-)) by ca. +27mV, whereas the Cl(-)/Br(-) exchange hardly influenced E(m)(Q(A)/Q(A)(-)). On the basis of the results of E(m)(Q(A)/Q(A)(-)) together with previous thermoluminescence measurements, the ion-exchange effects on the energetics in PSII are discussed.     

Tetraploid Embryonic Stem Cells Maintain Pluripotency and Differentiation Potency into Three Germ Layers

Polyploid amphibians and fishes occur naturally in nature, while polyploid mammals do not. For example, tetraploid mouse embryos normally develop into blastocysts, but exhibit abnormalities and die soon after implantation. Thus, polyploidization is thought to be harmful during early mammalian development. However, the mechanisms through which polyploidization disrupts development are still poorly understood. In this study, we aimed to elucidate how genome duplication affects early mammalian development. To this end, we established tetraploid embryonic stem cells (TESCs) produced from the inner cell masses of tetraploid blastocysts using electrofusion of two-cell embryos in mice and studied the developmental potential of TESCs. We demonstrated that TESCs possessed essential pluripotency and differentiation potency to form teratomas, which differentiated into the three germ layers, including diploid embryonic stem cells. TESCs also contributed to the inner cell masses in aggregated chimeric blastocysts, despite the observation that tetraploid embryos fail in normal development soon after implantation in mice. In TESCs, stability after several passages, colony morphology, and alkaline phosphatase activity were similar to those of diploid ESCs. TESCs also exhibited sufficient expression and localization of pluripotent markers and retained the normal epigenetic status of relevant reprogramming factors. TESCs proliferated at a slower rate than ESCs, indicating that the difference in genomic dosage was responsible for the different growth rates. Thus, our findings suggested that mouse ESCs maintained intrinsic pluripotency and differentiation potential despite tetraploidization, providing insights into our understanding of developmental elimination in polyploid mammals.     

Paradoxical enhancement of interleukin-2-mediated cytotoxicity against K562 cells by addition of a low dose of methotrexate

Summary In vitro effects of methotrexate (MTX) on interleukin-2(IL-2)-mediated cytotoxicity of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) were studied. PBMC were incubated with human recombinant IL-2 (25 U/ml) for 72 h; during the last 24 h, various concentrations (10 pM–1 µM) of MTX were added to the culture. Cytotoxicity against k562 cells was measured by a 4-h⁵¹Cr-release assay. The IL-2-mediated cytotoxicity was paradoxically increased at around a concentration (10 nM) MTX. Such a low concentration of MTX showed no anti-proliferative effect on cell growth. This enhancement with 10 nM MTX was shown only in an E-rosette⁺ (E⁺) population, but not in E-rosette^– (E^–). In addition, when E⁺ cells were treated with an anti-CD16 monoclonal antibody plus complement after incubation with IL-2 and MTX, MTX-induced enhancement was lost, suggesting that an E⁺CD16⁺ cell population was mainly involved in this augmentation. Positively sorted E⁺CD16⁺ cells showed similar enhancement of cytotoxicity after treatment with IL-2 plus MTX. On the other hand, MTX treatment did not show the phenotypical changes including of the E⁺CD16⁺ cells, indicating that this treatment did not affect the differentiation and proliferation of the specific cell subset. Our results indicate that a low dose of MTX could have a role in the regulation of immunological anti-cancer surveillance systems through the natural killer and lymphokine-activated cytotoxic cells.This work was supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid for Cancer Research (1–10) from the Ministry of Health and Welfare in Japan     

Benthic moss pillars in Antarctic lakes

Unique pillar-like colonies of aquatic mosses, rising from cyanobacterial and algal mats, have been discovered in some freshwater lakes in the vicinity of Syowa Station (69°00′S, 39°35′E), continental Antarctica. These moss pillars are about 40 cm in diameter and up to 60 cm high and occur at the lake bottoms mainly between 3 and 5 m depth. The primary component is a species of Leptobryum, a genus unknown in the continental Antarctic terrestrial bryoflora and as an aquatic genus elsewhere in the world. Bryum pseudotriquetrum is often an associated species. In longitudinal section the pillars reveal several whitish layers formed by mineral sediment and dead cyanobacteria. It is speculated that the biomass of aquatic mosses at the bottom of many Antarctic lakes is considerably greater than that previously estimated. Accepted: 11 April 1999