|
|
||||||||
1 Department of Mathematics and Physics, Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Thorvaldsensvej 40, DK-1861 Frederiksberg C, Denmark
2 Risø National Laboratory, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark
3 Food Engineering, Center for Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Lund University, S-22100 Lund, Sweden
4 Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Blegdamsvej 17, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
Reprint requests to: Dr. Christian Rischel, Department of Mathematics and Physics, Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Thorvaldsensvej 40, DK-1861 Frederiksberg C, Denmark. e-mail: rischel{at}dina.kvl.dk; fax: 45 35 28 23 50.
(RECEIVED October 4, 2000; FINAL REVISION March 30, 2001; ACCEPTED April 6, 2001)
Article and publication are at http://www.proteinscience.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/ps.42501.
| Abstract |
|---|
|
|
|---|
Keywords: ß-Lactoglobulin heat aggregation; metastable intermediates; molten globule state; thioflavin T affinity
Abbreviations: Blg, ß-lactoglobulin Cryo-TEM, Cryo-transmission electron microscopy SDS-PAGE, sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacryl-amide gel electrophoresis ANS, 1-anilino-8-naphthalene sulfonate Trp, tryptophan GuHCl, guanidine hydrochloride DTNB, 5,5`-dithiobis(2-nitrobenzoic acid)
| Introduction |
|---|
|
|
|---|
A few studies have reported detection of oligomers together with larger aggregates after induction of aggregation (Schweers et al. 1995; Hashimoto et al. 1998; Manderson et al. 1998; Bauer et al. 2000). ß-Lactoglobulin (Blg) is one of these proteins presenting oligomers (mostly dimers) in the early stages of heat aggregation (Manderson et al. 1998; Bauer et al. 2000). Blg is a globular protein with a mass of 18.3 kD, and is the most abundant protein in bovine whey. Its secondary structure consists of mainly ß-sheets organized in a ß-sandwich plus one
-helix (Brownlow et al. 1997).
In this report we present the characterization of isolated oligomers of the genetic A variant, that we have previously shown to be obligatory intermediates in heat aggregation (Bauer et al. 2000). The results show that the oligomers have typical features of molten globule states: secondary structure content similar to the native structure but less tight packing of the side chains. This confirms that molten globule states play a key role in the first steps of aggregation. The aggregates, as imaged by cryo-transmission electron microscopy (cryo-TEM), are spherical particles with a diameter of about 50 nm. Contrary to the native protein, the isolated oligomers as well as the aggregates bind thioflavin T, a dye used to detect amyloid (Le Vine 1995).
| Results |
|---|
|
|
|---|
|
Molten globule characteristics
The far-UV CD spectrum for the native protein, the oligomers, and the large aggregates are reported in Figure 2a
. In Table 1
are reported the results of deconvolution of the spectra, according to which the oligomers partially lose helical and ß-strand structure. However, the difference is not drastic. The aggregates are found to have even more ß-strand structure than the native, more random coil and less
-helix. The near-UV CD spectra for the native protein and the oligomers are reported in Figure 2b
. In this region the circular dichroism of proteins is caused by the aromatic residues and the disulfide bridges. A change in the whole near-UV region is notable for the oligomers. The CD signal around 280 nm, usually attributed to tryptophan, is strongly reduced, and new bands show up in the range 260290 nm. Such signals arise from disulfide bridge distortion (Fasman 1996), probably related to the intermolecular disulfide bond. The decrease of the tryptophan dichroism indicates an enhanced mobility of the chromophore. The CD data for the intermediates present typical characteristics of a molten globule state, that is, small changes in the secondary structure compared with the native and larger differences at the level of tertiary structure, reflected in the increased mobility of the side chains.
|
|
|
, although we do not have complementary evidence that this is the correct model.
GU-FH2O is the free energy difference in water, and m is a measure of the difference in exposure of groups interacting with GuHCl. The values obtained from the fits are reported in the caption to Figure 4
|
Thioflavin T binding
Many proteins aggregate forming ordered and structured fibrils, with a high content of ß-sheet and amyloid superstructure (Fink 1998; Dobson 1999; Rochet and Lansbury 2000; Wilkins et al. 2000). These amyloid fibrils are usually detected by using staining molecules such as thioflavin T or congo red, which change their spectroscopic properties by interaction with the aggregates (Le Vine 1995). Measurements of thioflavin T fluorescence in the presence of oligomers as well as aggregates isolated after 105 min of heating show that there is, indeed, an interaction between thioflavin T and the aggregates, as reported in Figure 5
. An interaction is observed also for the oligomers, whereas no interaction is detected for the native protein.
|
|
| Discussion |
|---|
|
|
|---|
protein (Schweers et al. 1995).
Molten globule states are encountered in equilibrium denaturation of many proteins, in particular at low pH, and have in a number of cases been shown to be identical to folding intermediates. The equilibrium denaturation and refolding kinetics of bovine and equine Blg have been the subjects of several studies. Titration of the bovine protein with GuHCl at pH 1.8 gave rise to an equilibrium intermediate with above-native content of
-helical structure that was further stabilized by the addition of trifluoroethanol (Hamada and Goto 1997; Kuwata et al. 1998). The equine protein likewise presents an equilibrium intermediate (the A state) when the pH is lowered to 1.5. CD measurements indicated a helix content above that of the native protein (Ikeguchi et al. 1997), although the extra helices could not be localized by hydrogen exchange measurements (Kobayashi et al. 2000). The folding intermediate at pH 3 has been investigated both by H/2H exchange pulse labeling for the bovine protein (Forge et al. 2000; Kuwata et al. 2001) and by stopped-flow CD for the bovine protein as well as the equine protein (Hamada et al. 1996; Arai et al. 1998; Fujiwara et al. 1999; Forge et al. 2000), and the folding intermediate resembles the A state quite well. Remarkably, these far-UV CD data are very similar to the spectrum that we find for the oligomers (Fig. 2a
), strongly suggesting that the Blg molecules linked together in the oligomers are in a conformation rather similar to the low-pH intermediate. The helix content predicted by our deconvolution (Table 1
) is significantly smaller than the values found at low pH (Hamada et al. 1996; Ikeguchi et al. 1997), despite the resemblance of the data. As noted above, the main helix of the protein must unfold in order for the dimer to form, and this might account for the balance. Another difference is that our analysis takes into account the important spectral region between 180 and 205 nm, which is inaccessible in the cited works owing to high concentrations of HCl and/or GuHCl.
The H/2H pulse labeling data of Forge et al. (2000) show that three ß-strands (F, G, and H) are formed in the folding intermediate. The pulse labeling results of Kuwata et al. (2001) also show protection in the large
-helix and part of an additional ß-strand (A), in agreement with steady-state hydrogen-exchange measurements on the A state (Kobayashi et al. 2000). Kuwata et al. (2001) propose that the residues of the A strand might be in a marginally stable nonnative helix. In the native structure, the A, F, G, and H strands together form a ß-sheet, with the free cysteine Cys121 in the middle of the sheet, and with the large
-helix shielding Cys121 from the solvent. The
-helix cannot interact with the ß-sheet in the oligomers, but we propose that the AFGH-sheet in each Blg molecule instead is stabilized by interactions with the sheet of the molecule to which it is linked.
We have previously shown that the oligomers aggregate by hydrophobic interactions, and that the assembly is nucleated, with at least four oligomers in the nucleus (Bauer et al. 2000). The presence of threadlike objects in Figure 6
suggests that the oligomers initially assemble into small strings, which then aggregate into the larger particles, giving a very open structure as previously observed (Bauer et al. 2000). The character of the nucleation step cannot presently be ascertained. The deconvolution of our CD data indicates that the content of ß-sheet is below-native for the oligomers but above-native for the aggregates. As discussed, the intact ß-sheet in the oligomers appears to be located at the monomermonomer interface. Thus, formation of additional ß-sheet structure upon aggregation probably takes place in the part of the oligomers facing away from this interface. The joining together of oligomers by contacts between these parts is consistent with the appearance of small strings with approximately the width of one monomer.
The increased affinity for thioflavin T found for the oligomers shows that binding of this dye is not restricted to complete amyloid fibrils. It might be argued that the binding to the Blg oligomers could be purely hydrophobic and unspecific, but this is not likely, because the difference in affinity between the native state and the oligomers (Fig. 5
) is much larger than for ANS (Fig. 3a
), the classical hydrophobic dye (ANS can also form ionic contacts to proteins [Matulis and Lovrien 1998], yet this mode of binding does not lead to increased fluorescence). Rather, our results indicate that Blg adopts a structural motif with increased thioflavin T binding very early in the aggregation process at the same time as the loss of tertiary structure. Based on the ability of many different proteins to form extremely stable amyloid fibrils, it has recently been proposed (Dobson 2000) that this structure in fact represents the global free energy minimum for a polypeptide chain (at normal concentrations). In this light, it is not at all surprising that ß-lactoglobulin apparently takes on a related conformation as soon as the tertiary interactions that constrain the chain to the native structure have been disrupted.
In a recent study, the dimers of
protein have been isolated and studied spectroscopically (Schweers et al. 1995; von Bergen et al. 2000). In contrast to our case, no binding of thioflavin dyes was observed prior to formation of filaments (Schweers et al. 1995). Metastable dimers have also been observed during fibrilization of
-synuclein (Hashimoto et al. 1998), which is involved in Parkinson's disease. It would be very interesting to perform a spectroscopic investigation on this system.
| Materials and methods |
|---|
|
|
|---|
Aggregation was induced by incubating the protein (20 mg/mL) at 67.5°C for 105 min. The partially aggregated sample was separated on a Superdex 200 column (Pharmacia). The species passing through the column were detected and sized as previously described (Bauer et al. 2000), by using a static light-scattering instrument (Dawn F with a K2 cell; Wyatt Technology) and a refractive index detector (RID-10A, Shimadzu, Japan). Figure 1a
shows the elution profiles of a Blg A solution before and after heating. We collected fractions of large aggregates, oligomers, and nativelike species. The dimer was purified further from the oligomer fraction. Figure 1b
shows the quality of separation.
CD measurements were performed on a JASCO J715 at 20°C, with a 20-nm/min scan rate and 0.5-nm resolution, and far-UV spectra were deconvoluted using an SVD-based algorithm (Manavalan and Johnson 1987). CD measurements on the oligomers, isolated from samples heated for different times, showed unchanged conformations, whereas structural changes were observed in the aggregates, reflecting their progressive growth (results not shown). Secondary structure content in the X-ray structure at pH 8.2 (Qin et al. 1999) was calculated using the program MOLMOL (Koradi et al. 1996). 1-Anilinonaphthalene-8-sulfonic acid (ANS) binding, intrinsic tryptophan fluorescence, and unfolding/refolding in guanidine hydrochloride (GuHCl) probed by tryptophan emission and thioflavin fluorescence were measured on a Perkin Elmer LS50B spectrofluorimeter. The Elman assay was performed on 3 M urea solutions in 100 mM Tris buffer at pH 8, with a ratio of DTNB/protein = 2 and using
to probe the reaction. Protein concentration was estimated using
. Absorption was measured on a HP8453 spectrophotometer.
Cryo-TEM was performed on aggregates isolated after heating at 67.5°C for 105 or 210 min, with very similar results. The samples were frozen in liquid nitrogen immediately after size-exclusion chromatography and kept at -20°C until just before application to the microscope grid. Application to the grid was done in a controlled environment vitrification system (CEVS), with the chamber temperature at 30°C and the humidity close to saturation to avoid evaporation of water from the sample during preparation. A small amount of the sample (5 µL) was put on a lacey carbon film supported by a copper grid and gently blotted with filter paper to get a thin liquid film on the grid (<0.3 µm). The grid was quenched in liquid ethane at its freezing point and transferred into liquid nitrogen (Bellare et al. 1988). The vitrified specimens were stored under liquid nitrogen and transferred to the transmission electron microscope (Philips CM120 BioTWIN Cryo) equipped with a post-column energy filter (Gatan GIF 100), using an Oxford CT3500 cryoholder and its workstation. The acceleration voltage was 120 kV, and the working temperature was -180°C. The images were recorded with a CCD camera (Gatan 791) under low dose conditions and utilizing the zero loss peak (slit width of 8 eV). The defocus was approximately 1 µm.
| Acknowledgments |
|---|
The publication costs of this article were defrayed in part by payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 USC section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
| References |
|---|
|
|
|---|
Bauer, R., Carrotta, R., Rischel, C., Øgendal, L. 2000. Characterization and isolation of intermediates in ß-lactolobulin heat aggregation. Biophys. J. 79: 10301038.
Bellare, J.R., Davis, H.T., Scriven, L.E., and Talmon, Y. 1988. Controlled environment vitrification system: An improved sample preparation technique. J. Electron Microsc. Technol. 10: 87111[CrossRef][Medline]
Booth, D.R., Sunde, M., Bellotti, V., Robinson, C.V., Hutchinson, W.L., Fraser, P.E., Hawkins, P.N., Dobson, C.M., Radford, S.E., Blake, C.C.F., et al. 1997. Instability, unfolding and aggregation of human lysozyme variants underlying amyloid fibrillogenesis. Nature 385: 787793.[CrossRef][Medline]
Brownlow, S., Cabral, J.H.M., Cooper, R., Flower, D.R., Yewdall, S.J., Polikarpov, I., North, A.C.T., and Sawyer, L. 1997. Bovine ß-lactolobulin at 1.8 Å resolutionStill an enigmatic lipocalin. Structure 5: 481495.[Medline]
Dobson, C.M. 1999. Protein misfolding, evolution and disease. Trends Biochem. Sci. 24: 329332.[CrossRef][Medline]
. 2000. Protein folding, evolution and disease. Eur. Biophys. J. 29: 233.
Fasman, G.D. 1996. Circular dichroism and conformational analysis of biomolecules. Plenum Press, New York.
Fersht, A. 1999. Structure and mechanism in protein science. Freeman, New York.
Fink, A.L. 1998. Protein aggregation: Folding aggregates, inclusion bodies and amyloid. Folding & Design 3: R9R23.[CrossRef][Medline]
Forge, V., Hoshino, M., Kuwata, K., Arai, M., Kuwajima, K., Batt, C.A., and Goto, Y. 2000. Is folding of ß-lactoglobulin non-hierachic? Intermediate with native-like ß-sheet and non-native
-helix. J. Mol. Biol. 296: 10391051.[CrossRef][Medline]
Fujiwara, K., Arai, M., Shimizu, A., Ikeguchi, M., Kuwajima, K., and Sugai, S. 1999. Foldingunfolding equilibrium and kinetics of equine ß-lactolobulin: Equivalence between the equilibrium molten globule state and a burst-phase folding intermediate. Biochemistry 38: 44554463.[CrossRef][Medline]
Hamada, D. and Goto, Y. 1997. The equilibrium intermediate of b-lactoglobulin with non-native
-helical structure. J. Mol. Biol. 269: 479487.[CrossRef][Medline]
Hamada, D., Segawa, S., and Goto, Y. 1996. Non-native
-helical intermediate in the refolding of ß-lactoglobulin, a predominantly ß-sheet protein. Nat. Struct. Biol. 3: 868873.[CrossRef][Medline]
Hashimoto, M., Hsu, L.J., Sisk, A., Xia, Y., Takeda, A., Sundsmo, M., and Masliah, E. 1998. Human recombinant NACP/
-synuclein is aggregated and fibrillated in vitro: Relevance for Lewy body disease. Brain Research 799: 301306.[CrossRef][Medline]
Ikeguchi, M., Kato, S., Shimizu, A., and Sugai, S. 1997. Molten globule state of equine ß-lactoglobulin. Proteins: Struct. Funct. Genet. 27: 567575.[CrossRef][Medline]
Ionescu-Zanetti, C., Khurana, R., Gillespie, J.R., Petrick, J.S., Trabachino, L.C., Minert, L.J., Carter, S.A., and Fink, A.L. 1999. Monitoring the assembly of Ig light-chain amyloid fibrils by atomic force microscopy. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 96: 1317513179.
Johnson, W.G. 2000. Late-onset neurodegenerative diseasesThe role of protein insolubility. J. Anat. 196: 609616.
Kayed, R., Bernhagen, J., Greenfield, N., Sweimeh, K., Brunner, H., Voelter, W., and Kapurniotu, A. 1999. Conformational transitions of Islet amyloid polypeptide (IAPP) in amyloid formation in vitro. J. Mol. Biol. 287: 781796.[CrossRef][Medline]
Kobayashi, T., Ikeguchi, M., and Sugai, S. 2000. Molten globule structure of equine ß-lactoglobulin probed by hydrogen exchange. J. Mol. Biol. 299: 757770.[CrossRef][Medline]
Koradi, R., Billeter, M., and Wütrich, K. 1996 MOLMOL: A program for display and analysis of macromolecular structures. J. Mol. Graphics 14: 5155.
Kuwata, K., Hoshino, M., Era, S., Batt, C.A., and Goto, Y. 1998.
ß transition of ß-lactoglobulin as evidenced by heteronuclear NMR. J. Mol. Biol. 283: 731739.[CrossRef][Medline]
Kuwata, K., Shastry, R., Cheng, H., Hoshino, M., Batt, C.A., Goto, Y., and Roder, H. 2001. Structural and kinetic characterization of early folding events in ß-lactoglobulin. Nat. Struct. Biol. 8: 151155.[CrossRef][Medline]
Le Vine III, H. 1995. Thioflavine T interaction with amyloid ß-sheet structures. Amyloid: Int. J. Exp. Clin. Invest. 2: 16.
Manavalan, P. and Johnson, W.C., Jr. 1987. Variable selection method improves the prediction of protein secondary structure from circular dichroism spectra. Anal. Biochem. 167: 7685.[CrossRef][Medline]
Manderson, G.A., Hardman, M.J., and Creamer, L.K. 1998. Effect of heat treatment on the conformation and aggregation of ß-lactoglobulin A, B and C. J. Agricul. Food Chem. 46: 50525061.[CrossRef]
Matulis, D. and Lovrien, R. 1998 1-Anilino-8-naphthalene sulfonate anionprotein binding depends primarily on ion pair formation. Biophys. J. 74: 422429.
McParland, V.J., Kad, N.M., Kalverda, A.P., Brown, A., Kirwin-Jones, P., Hunter, M.G., Sunde, M., and Radford, S.E. 2000. Partially unfolded states of ß2-microglobulin and amyloid formation in vitro. Biochemistry 39: 87358746.[CrossRef][Medline]
Qi, X.L., Holt, C., McNulty, D., Clarke, D.T., Brownlow, S., and Jones, G.R. 1997. Effect of temperature on the secondary structure of ß-lactoglobulin at pH 6.7 as determined by CD and IR spectroscopy: A test of the molten globule hypothesis. Biochem. J. 324: 341346.
Qin, B.Y., Bewley, M.C., Creamer, L.K., Baker, H.M., Baker, E.N., Geoffrey, B., and Jameson, G.B. 1999. Structural basis of the Tanford transition of bovine ß-lactoglobulin. Biochemistry 37: 1401414023.
Rochet, J.C. and Lansbury, P.T. 2000. Amyloid fibrilloenesis: Themes and variations. Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol. 10: 6068.[CrossRef][Medline]
Schweers, O., Mandelkow, E.-M., Biernat, J., and Mandelkow, E. 1995. Oxidation of cysteine-322 in the repeat domain of microtubule-associated protein
controls the in vitro assembly of paired helical filaments. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 92: 84638467.
Shimada, K. and Cheftel, J.C. 1989. Sulfhydryl group/disulfide bond interchange reactions during heat-induced gelation of whey protein isolate. J. Agricul. Food Chem. 37: 161168.[CrossRef]
von Bergen, M., Friedhoff, J., Heberle, J., Mandelkow, E.-M., and Mandelkow, E. 2000. Assembly of
protein into Alzheimer paired helical filaments depends on a local sequence motif (306VQIVYK311) forming ß structure. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 97: 51295134.
Walsh, D.M., Lomakin, A., Benedek, G.B., Condron, M.M., and Teplow, D.B. 1997. Amyloid ß-protein fibrillogenesis. Detection of a protofibrillar intermediate. J. Biol. Chem. 272: 2236422372.
Wilkins, D.K., Dobson, C.M., and Groß, M. 2000. Biophysical studies of the development of amyloid fibrils from a peptide fragment of cold shock protein B. Eur. J. Biochem. 267: 26092616.[Medline]
![]()
CiteULike
Connotea
Del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Technorati What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
![]() |
R. W. Lencki Evidence for Fibril-Like Structure in Bovine Casein Micelles J Dairy Sci, January 1, 2007; 90(1): 75 - 89. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
R. Carrotta, M. Manno, D. Bulone, V. Martorana, and P. L. S. Biagio Protofibril Formation of Amyloid {beta}-Protein at Low pH via a Non-cooperative Elongation Mechanism J. Biol. Chem., August 26, 2005; 280(34): 30001 - 30008. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
M. Zhu, S. Han, F. Zhou, S. A. Carter, and A. L. Fink Annular Oligomeric Amyloid Intermediates Observed by in Situ Atomic Force Microscopy J. Biol. Chem., June 4, 2004; 279(23): 24452 - 24459. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
T. Croguennec, D. Molle, R. Mehra, and S. Bouhallab Spectroscopic characterization of heat-induced nonnative {beta}-lactoglobulin monomers Protein Sci., May 1, 2004; 13(5): 1340 - 1346. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
M. A. Olson, J. H. Carra, V. Roxas-Duncan, R. W. Wannemacher, L. A. Smith, and C. B. Millard Finding a new vaccine in the ricin protein fold Protein Eng. Des. Sel., April 1, 2004; 17(4): 391 - 397. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
Y.-B. Yan, Q. Wang, H.-W. He, and H.-M. Zhou Protein Thermal Aggregation Involves Distinct Regions: Sequential Events in the Heat-Induced Unfolding and Aggregation of Hemoglobin Biophys. J., March 1, 2004; 86(3): 1682 - 1690. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
M. Yagi, K. Sakurai, C. Kalidas, C. A. Batt, and Y. Goto Reversible Unfolding of Bovine {beta}-Lactoglobulin Mutants without a Free Thiol Group J. Biol. Chem., November 21, 2003; 278(47): 47009 - 47015. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
Y.-B. Yan, Q. Wang, H.-W. He, X.-Y. Hu, R.-Q. Zhang, and H.-M. Zhou Two-Dimensional Infrared Correlation Spectroscopy Study of Sequential Events in the Heat-Induced Unfolding and Aggregation Process of Myoglobin Biophys. J., September 1, 2003; 85(3): 1959 - 1967. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
S. Marchal, E. Shehi, M.-C. Harricane, P. Fusi, F. Heitz, P. Tortora, and R. Lange Structural Instability and Fibrillar Aggregation of Non-expanded Human Ataxin-3 Revealed under High Pressure and Temperature J. Biol. Chem., August 22, 2003; 278(34): 31554 - 31563. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HOME | HELP | FEEDBACK | SUBSCRIPTIONS | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |