The CD160+ CD8high cytotoxic T cell subset correlates with response to HAART in HIV-1+ patients

We investigated the circulating cytotoxic CD160+ CD8(high) subset in correlation to antiviral immunity and response to highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in HIV+ subjects. The study included 45 treatment-naive patients receiving HAART for 18 months, retrospectively defined as good (n=29) and transient (n=16) responders. HIV-specific CD8 T lymphocyte levels were measured by IFNgamma production in response to p17 Gag, in the presence of immobilized anti-CD160 mAb. We report a significantly increased baseline level of CD160+ CD8(high) subset in good therapy responders. CD160+ CD8(high) subset correlates with CD4+ T cell count, immune activation, and viral load. CD160+ CD8(high) lymphocytes contain a high amount of Granzyme B and include virus-specific T lymphocytes in HIV-1+ subjects. Co-stimulation through CD160 molecules enhances IFNgamma production in response to p17 Gag. Therefore, the CD160+ CD8(high) subset may be useful for monitoring of virus-specific cellular immunity and predicting response to antiretroviral therapy in chronic HIV-1 infection.     

DNA damage response curtails detrimental replication stress and chromosomal instability induced by the dietary carcinogen PhIP

PhIP is an abundant heterocyclic aromatic amine (HCA) and important dietary carcinogen. Following metabolic activation, PhIP causes bulky DNA lesions at the C8-position of guanine. Although C8-PhIP-dG adducts are mutagenic, their interference with the DNA replication machinery and the elicited DNA damage response (DDR) have not yet been studied. Here, we analyzed PhIP-triggered replicative stress and elucidated the role of the apical DDR kinases ATR, ATM and DNA-PK_cs in the cellular defense response. First, we demonstrate that PhIP induced C8-PhIP-dG adducts and DNA strand breaks. This stimulated ATR-CHK1 signaling, phosphorylation of histone 2AX and the formation of RPA foci. In proliferating cells, PhIP treatment increased the frequency of stalled replication forks and reduced fork speed. Inhibition of ATR in the presence of PhIP-induced DNA damage strongly promoted the formation of DNA double-strand breaks, activation of the ATM-CHK2 pathway and hyperphosphorylation of RPA. The abrogation of ATR signaling potentiated the cell death response and enhanced chromosomal aberrations after PhIP treatment, while ATM and DNA-PK inhibition had only marginal effects. These results strongly support the notion that ATR plays a key role in the defense against cancer formation induced by PhIP and related HCAs.     

The effect of phenylacetic acid on cholinesterase activity and on some isoenzymes of esterases and cholinesterases of peain vitro

Phenylacetic acid at 1.5 × 10^-3 M inhibits the activity of some esterase isoenzymes from pea leaves separated by means of polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Some of the inhibited esterases show cholinesterase activity. Inhibition of the total activity has been demonstrated with a partially purified protein fraction from pea leaves containing choline esterase. The inhibition constant established after Dixon was 7.9 × 10^-3 M and the type of inhibition was competitive.     

Insulin effect on the phospholipid organization and some enzyme activities of rat liver membrane fractions

1. The influence of insulin on rat liver membrane lipid composition, fluidity, some enzyme activities and asymmetry of microsomal phospholipids were investigated. 2. The total phospholipids and cholesterol were increased in microsomes and reduced in plasma membranes from insulin-treated rats. 3. Of all the investigated enzymes participating in the lipid metabolism, only the neutral sphingomyelinase activity was observed to be enhanced, whereas the ceramide-phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) synthetase and phospholipase A2 activities remained unchanged. 4. Insulin administration caused translocation of phosphatidylserine (PS) and PE to the outer leaflet and of phosphatidylinositol (PI) to the inner leaflet of microsomal membranes.     

Elevated Plasma Albumin and Apolipoprotein A-I Oxidation under Suboptimal Specimen Storage Conditions

S-cysteinylated albumin and methionine-oxidized apolipoprotein A-I (apoA-I) have been posed as candidate markers of diseases associated with oxidative stress. Here, a dilute-and-shoot form of LC–electrospray ionization–MS requiring half a microliter of blood plasma was employed to simultaneously quantify the relative abundance of these oxidized proteoforms in samples stored at −80 °C, −20 °C, and room temperature and exposed to multiple freeze–thaw cycles and other adverse conditions in order to assess the possibility that protein oxidation may occur as a result of poor sample storage or handling. Samples from a healthy donor and a participant with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes started at the same low level of protein oxidation and behaved similarly; significant increases in albumin oxidation via S-cysteinylation were found to occur within hours at room temperature and days at −20 °C. Methionine oxidation of apoA-I took place on a longer time scale, setting in after albumin oxidation reached a plateau. Freeze–thaw cycles had a minimal effect on protein oxidation. In matched collections, protein oxidation in serum was the same as that in plasma. Albumin and apoA-I oxidation were not affected by sample headspace or the degree to which vials were sealed. ApoA-I, however, was unexpectedly found to oxidize faster in samples with lower surface-area-to-volume ratios. An initial survey of samples from patients with inflammatory conditions normally associated with elevated oxidative stress—including acute myocardial infarction and prostate cancer—demonstrated a lack of detectable apoA-I oxidation. Albumin S-cysteinylation in these samples was consistent with known but relatively brief exposures to temperatures above −30 °C (the freezing point of blood plasma). Given their properties and ease of analysis, these oxidized proteoforms, once fully validated, may represent the first markers of blood plasma specimen integrity based on direct measurement of oxidative molecular damage that can occur under suboptimal storage conditions.Human serum albumin contains a single free cysteine residue (Cys34) that is susceptible to oxidation via disulfide-bond formation with free cysteine amino acids, resulting in S-cysteinylated (oxidized) albumin (1). Human apolipoprotein A-I (apoA-I)¹ contains three methionine residues (Met86, Met112, and Met148) that can be oxidized to sulfoxides (2–4). The oxidized forms of both of these plasma/serum (P/S) proteins have been proposed as markers of conditions involving oxidative stress (5–9), including atherosclerosis (6–8). These proteins are readily analyzed intact via mass spectrometry in a single run using simple dilute-and-shoot techniques; thus if scientifically suitable, they are well positioned analytically to serve as clinical markers. At least some evidence exists, however, that both albumin (10) and apoA-I (6) are susceptible to artifactual oxidation ex vivo. Notably, the scientific literature in recent years has been relatively quiet with regard to both of these markers. We suspected that spontaneous artifactual oxidation of these proteins ex vivo led to their initial implication as markers of disease, but that the same phenomenon might have confounded efforts to clinically validate them (11, 12). Thus we undertook systematic studies of albumin and apoA-I oxidation ex vivo and found evidence indicating that rather than serving as markers of disease, oxidized albumin and apoA-I may serve as markers for improper handling and storage of blood P/S.Improper biospecimen handling and storage can contribute to sample measurements that do not accurately reflect biological reality in vivo (13–16). This may introduce bias in analytical results, limiting the capacity for meaningful comparisons among patient groups (17–19). Thus careful pre-analytical sample handling is a vital component of both clinical investigation and biomarker research. For clinical assays, parameters that define proper sample handling and storage are generally determined during assay validation and are typically incorporated into laboratory standard operating procedures. In blood P/S-based biomarker development work, however, verification of sample integrity is sometimes overlooked or considered only as an afterthought. Contributing to this phenomenon is that fact that there are no universally accepted, globally applicable endogenous reference markers of P/S integrity. Indeed, there likely does not exist a single, individual marker capable of meeting this broad specification. Nonetheless, identification and standardization of quality control markers that cover this specific scope of application (i.e. proper storage conditions for blood P/S) represent an important goal of biobanking-related research (16, 20).Betsou et al. (16) recently outlined and ranked some of the strongest candidates for use as quality control tools in biomarker research. Within the scope of tools for assessing proper handling and storage of P/S samples, nearly all markers are founded on the quantification of a nominal protein via a molecular-recognition-based assay. As a result, the indication of a loss of specimen integrity lies in an apparent loss of the target protein beyond the normal human reference range. Such loss is often ascribed to “degradation” and in many cases likely happens because of residual proteolytic activity that occurs at temperatures above the sample freezing point. In other cases, loss of the protein marker may be due to misfolding caused by repeated freeze–thaw cycles.Though not frequently discussed, protein “degradation” ex vivo may also have roots in oxidative processes that are capable of disrupting protein–antibody interactions that serve as the basis for protein quantification. It is well known that in the absence of special precautions, disulfide bonds will form spontaneously between cysteine thiols. We have previously shown that this requires only the presence of atmospheric oxygen and trace metals and proceeds through a cysteine sulfenic acid intermediate (21). This mechanism also applies to S-cysteinylation of albumin (22–24), though disulfide exchange with cystine may be operative in P/S as well. Likewise, it is known that methionine-containing proteins and peptides will oxidize to sulfoxides spontaneously in the presence of atmospheric oxygen (25, 26); indeed, artifactual sulfoxidation of methionine residues in peptide-based proteomics work is well known. Oxidative modifications such as these have the potential to disrupt antibody interactions with the oxidized protein, resulting in low readings in molecular-recognition-based assays. Thus protein oxidation merits investigation as a protein “degradation” pathway.As pointed out by Betsou et al. (16), markers that are highly sensitive to variations in specimen storage and handling conditions are likely to be the most useful. A considerable degree of change that occurs rapidly under undesirable conditions to which samples may be exposed, such as the state of being incompletely frozen (which for blood plasma occurs at temperatures above −30 °C (27–30)), is something to be sought after in a biospecimen-integrity marker. Herein we describe simple methods for the simultaneous relative quantification of oxidized albumin and apoA-I and present evidence that albumin and apoA-I can undergo major increases in oxidation ex vivo and thus may be useful markers of P/S specimen integrity.     

Homologous recombination protects mammalian cells from replication-associated DNA double-strand breaks arising in response to methyl methanesulfonate

DNA-methylating agents of the S_N2 type target DNA mostly at ring nitrogens, producing predominantly N-methylated purines. These adducts are repaired by base excision repair (BER). Since defects in BER cause accumulation of DNA single-strand breaks (SSBs) and sensitize cells to the agents, it has been suggested that some of the lesions on their own or BER intermediates (e.g. apurinic sites) are cytotoxic, blocking DNA replication and inducing replication-mediated DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs). Here, we addressed the question of whether homologous recombination (HR) or non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) or both are involved in the repair of DSBs formed following treatment of cells with methyl methanesulfonate (MMS). We show that HR defective cells (BRCA2, Rad51D and XRCC3 mutants) are dramatically more sensitive to MMS-induced DNA damage as measured by colony formation, apoptosis and chromosomal aberrations, while NHEJ defective cells (Ku80 and DNA-PK_CS mutants) are only mildly sensitive to the killing, apoptosis-inducing and clastogenic effects of MMS. On the other hand, the HR mutants were almost completely refractory to the formation of sister chromatid exchanges (SCEs) following MMS treatment. Since DSBs are expected to be formed specifically in the S-phase, we assessed the formation and kinetics of repair of DSBs by γH2AX quantification in a cell cycle specific manner. In the cytotoxic dose range of MMS a significant amount of γH2AX foci was induced in S, but not G1- and G2-phase cells. A major fraction of γH2AX foci colocalized with 53BP1 and phosphorylated ATM, indicating they are representative of DSBs. DSB formation following MMS treatment was also demonstrated by the neutral comet assay. Repair kinetics revealed that HR mutants exhibit a significant delay in DSB repair, while NHEJ mutants completed S-phase specific DSB repair with a kinetic similar to the wildtype. Moreover, DNA-PKcs inhibition in HR mutants did not affect the repair kinetics after MMS treatment. Overall, the data indicate that agents producing N-alkylpurines in the DNA induce replication-dependent DSBs. Further, they show that HR is the major pathway of protection of cells against DSB formation, killing and genotoxicity following S_N2-alkylating agents.     

Structure and Stability Insights into Tumour Suppressor p53 Evolutionary Related Proteins

The p53 family of genes and their protein products, namely, p53, p63 and p73, have over one billion years of evolutionary history. Advances in computational biology and genomics are enabling studies of the complexities of the molecular evolution of p53 protein family to decipher the underpinnings of key biological conditions spanning from cancer through to various metabolic and developmental disorders and facilitate the design of personalised medicines. However, a complete understanding of the inherent nature of the thermodynamic and structural stability of the p53 protein family is still lacking. This is due, to a degree, to the lack of comprehensive structural information for a large number of homologous proteins and to an incomplete knowledge of the intrinsic factors responsible for their stability and how these might influence function. Here we investigate the thermal stability, secondary structure and folding properties of the DNA-binding domains (DBDs) of a range of proteins from the p53 family using biophysical methods. While the N- and the C-terminal domains of the p53 family show sequence diversity and are normally targets for post-translational modifications and alternative splicing, the central DBD is highly conserved. Together with data obtained from Molecular Dynamics simulations in solution and with structure based homology modelling, our results provide further insights into the molecular properties of evolutionary related p53 proteins. We identify some marked structural differences within the p53 family, which could account for the divergence in biological functions as well as the subtleties manifested in the oligomerization properties of this family.     

Radical scavenging and radiomodulatory effects of Psoralea corylifolia Linn. substantiated by in vitro assays and EPR spectroscopy

The present study is the first report of the radiomodulatory effects of Psoralea corylifolia Linn. The extract (IBG-RA-26) prepared from P. corylifolia was chemically analysed by HPLC, LC-MS/MS and NMR. The total polyphenolic content of IBG-RA-26 was 0.287 mg/ml of quercetin equivalents. IBG-RA-26 exhibited a dose-dependent increase in 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity. It exhibited comparable (> 50%) site-specific and non-site-specific hydroxyl radical scavenging activity in higher concentration ranges (500-1000 microg/ml), while at lower concentrations (5-50 microg/ml) it exhibited significantly (p < 0.05) higher non-site-specific scavenging ability compared to site-specific activity. Nitric oxide scavenging activity of IBG-RA-26 (5-1000 microg/ml) increased in a concentration-dependent manner, while maximum superoxide ion scavenging ability (79%) was observed at 50 microg/ml. The electron donation potential of IBG-RA-26 was found to be higher than that of ascorbic acid at lower concentrations (up to 5 microg/ml). Analysis of the ability of IBG-RA-26 to protect membranes against gamma-radiation, utilizing an artificial membrane system (liposome), revealed a significant (p < 0.05) decrease in the formation of malondialdehyde (MDA) as a function of the concentration of IBG-RA-26. Radiation-induced lysis of human erythrocytes was monitored and efficacy of IBG-RA-26 was tested in the concentration range 25-1000 microg/ml, with significant protective efficacy observed in the range 25-50 microg/ml. IBG-RA-26 rendered significant (p < 0.05) protection against radiation (0.25 kGy)-induced DNA damage. EPR spectroscopy was used to investigate the DPPH radical scavenging capacity of IBG-RA-26. IBG-RA-26 exhibited a good DPPH radical scavenging capacity in a concentration-dependent manner. By direct EPR spectroscopy we have also demonstrated the possible formation of free radical species in a solution of IBG-RA-26. The wide spectrum of radioprotective and antioxidant properties exhibited by IBG-RA-26 indicate that P. corylifolia has potential as a radiomodulatory agent.