The detection of kinetic intermediates during the unfolding of lipoxygenase-1 by urea or guanidine hydrochloride

A novel interaction mode between acrylamide and its specific antibody

Since the discovery of high-level acrylamide (Acr) contamination in food, extensive international studies have focused on its toxicity and detection. By using a novel antigen synthetic strategy, we have successfully obtained a specific antibody towards acrylamide (Acr-Ab). Herein, the Acr-Ab and its interactions with Acr were characterized. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and dynamic light scattering (DLS) investigations revealed that the conformational structure of Acr-Ab was sensitive to buffers. It showed a satisfied immunoreactivity in phosphate buffered saline (PBS), but denatured in water. In natural state, Acr-Ab had a trend of getting aggregation through their complementarity determining regions (CDRs). Adding Acr leaded to their disassembling. While mixed with Acr, Acr-Ab exhibits not only a fast, high-specific, and reversible non covalent binding (by surface plasmon resonance, SPR), but also a covalent alkylation with Acr through cysteine and histidine residues on its surface, as demonstrated by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Neither of the two reactions involves conformational change in secondary or tertiary structures as shown in circular dichroism spectra (CD). These special properties of Acr-Ab and the entirely new interaction mode with Acr will extend our knowledge of Acr related biosystem and facilitate the development of new detection strategies for Acr.

Structure-to-function relationship of mini-lipoxygenase, a 60-kDa fragment of soybean lipoxygenase-1 with lower stability but higher enzymatic activity

Lipoxygenase-1 (Lox-1) is a member of the lipoxygenase family, a class of dioxygenases that take part in the metabolism of polyunsatured fatty acids in eukaryotes. Tryptic digestion of soybean Lox-1 is known to produce a 60 kDa fragment, termed "mini-Lox," which shows enhanced catalytic efficiency and higher membrane-binding ability than the native enzyme (Maccarrone, M., Salucci, M. L., van Zadelhoff, G., Malatesta, F., Veldink, G. Vliegenthart, J. F. G., and Finazzi-Agrò, A. (2001) Biochemistry 40, 6819-6827). In this study, we have investigated the stability of mini-Lox in guanidinium hydrochloride and under high pressure by fluorescence and circular dichroism spectroscopy. Only a partial unfolding could be obtained at high pressure in the range 1-3000 bar at variance with guanidinium hydrochloride. However, in both cases a reversible denaturation was observed. The denaturation experiments demonstrate that mini-Lox is a rather unstable molecule, which undergoes a two-step unfolding transition at moderately low guanidinium hydrochloride concentration (0-4.5 m). Both chemical- and physical-induced denaturation suggest that mini-Lox is more hydrated than Lox-1, an observation also confirmed by 1-anilino-8-naphthalenesulfonate (ANS) binding studies. We have also investigated the occurrence of substrate-induced changes in the protein tertiary structure by dynamic fluorescence techniques. In particular, eicosatetraynoic acid, an irreversible inhibitor of lipoxygenase, has been used to mimic the effect of substrate binding. We demonstrated that mini-Lox is indeed characterized by much larger conformational changes than those occurring in the native Lox-1 upon binding of eicosatetraynoic acid. Finally, by both activity and fluorescence measurements we have found that 1-anilino-8-naphthalenesulfonate has access to the active site of mini-Lox but not to that of intact Lox-1. These findings strongly support the hypothesis that the larger hydration of mini-Lox renders this molecule more flexible, and therefore less stable.

Effect of denaturants on the structural properties of soybean lipoxygenase-1

The effect of chemical (urea) and physical (temperature and high pressure) denaturation on the structural properties of soybean lipoxygenase-1 (LOX1) was analyzed through dynamic fluorescence spectroscopy and circular dichroism. We show that the fluorescence decay of the native protein could be fitted by two lorentzian distributions of lifetimes, centered at 1 and 4 ns. The analysis of the urea-denatured protein suggested that the shorter distribution is mostly due to the tryptophan residues located in the N-terminal domain of LOX1. We also show that a pressure of 2400 bar and a temperature of 55 degrees C brought LOX-1 to a state similar to a recently described stable intermediate "I." Analysis of circular dichroism spectra indicated a substantial decrease of alpha-helix compared with beta-structure under denaturing conditions, suggesting a higher stability of the N-terminal compared with the C-terminal domain in the denaturation process.

Influence of the oligomeric state of yeast hexokinase isozymes on inactivation and unfolding by urea

The effect of the association-dissociation equilibrium on the urea-induced inactivation and unfolding of the yeast hexokinase isoforms, PI and PII, showed that these enzymes are more stable as dimers. For the monomeric PII, the inactivation and unfolding processes occurred in parallel. However, inactivation precedes the unfolding of monomeric PI or dimeric PI and PII. The unfolding transitions are biphasic for PI indicating stable intermediates, whereas for the PII isoform the unfolding occurs in a single step. Our data suggests that although PI and PII present a 78% identity in their amino acid sequences, they probably have distinct inactivation and unfolding by urea behavior.

pH-induced domain interaction and conformational transitions of lipoxygenase-1

The multidomain structure of soybean LOX1 was examined over the pH range 1-12. Lipoxygenase-1 activity was reversible over broad pH range of 4-10 due to the reversibility of conformational states of the molecule. Below pH 4.0, due to collapse in hydrophobic interactions, the enzyme unfolded to an irreversible conformation with the properties of molten globule state with a mid point of transition at pH 2.4. This intermediate state lost iron irreversibly. In alkaline pH at 11.5, LOX1 underwent partial unfolding with the exposure of cysteine residues with subsequent oxidation of a pair of cysteine residues in the C-terminal domain and this intermediate showed some properties of molten globule state and retained 35% of activity. Beyond pH 12.0, the enzyme was completely inactivated irreversibly due to irreversible conformational changes. The pH-dependent urea-induced unfolding of LOX1 suggested that LOX1 was more stable at pH 7.0 and least stable at pH 9.0. Furthermore, the urea-induced unfolding of LOX1 indicated that the unfolding was biphasic due to pH-dependent domain interactions and involved sequential unfolding of domains. The loss of enzyme activity at pH 4. 0 and 7.0 occurred much earlier to unfolding of the C-domain at all pHs studied. The combination of urea-induced unfolding measurements and limited proteolysis experiments suggested that at pH 4.0, the domains in LOX1 were less interactive and existed as tightly folded units. Furthermore, these results confirmed the contribution of ionic interactions in the interdomain contacts.

Involvement of cysteine residues and domain interactions in the reversible unfolding of lipoxygenase-1

Urea-induced unfolding of lipoxygenase-1 (LOX1) at pH 7.0 was followed by enzyme activity, spectroscopic measurements, and limited proteolysis experiments. Complete unfolding of LOX1 in 9 M urea in the presence of thiol reducing or thiol modifying reagents was observed. The aggregation and oxidative reactions prevented the reversible unfolding of the molecule. The loss of enzyme activity was much earlier than the structural loss of the molecule during the course of unfolding, with the midpoint concentrations being 4.5 and 7.0 M for activity and spectroscopic measurements, respectively. The equilibrium unfolding transition could be adequately fitted to a three-state, two-step model (N left arrow over right arrow I left arrow over right arrow U) and the intermediate fraction was maximally populated at 6.3 M urea. The free energy change (DeltaG(H(2)O)) for the unfolding of native (N) to intermediate (I) was 14.2 +/- 0.28 kcal/mol and for the intermediate to the unfolded state (U) was 11.9 +/- 0.12 kcal/mol. The ANS binding measurements as a function of urea concentration indicated that the maximum binding of ANS was in 6.3 M urea due to the exposure of hydrophobic groups; this intermediate showed significant amount of tertiary structure and retained nearly 60% of secondary structure. The limited proteolysis measurements showed that the initiation of unfolding was from the C-terminal domain. Thus, the stable intermediate observed could be the C-terminal domain unfolded with exposed hydrophobic domain-domain interface. Limited proteolysis experiments during refolding process suggested that the intermediate refolded prior to completely unfolded LOX1. These results confirmed the role of cysteine residues and domain-domain interactions in the reversible unfolding of LOX1. This is the first report of the reversible unfolding of a very large monomeric, multi-domain protein, which also has a prosthetic group.

Comparison of conformational changes and inactivation of soybean lipoxygenase-1 during urea denaturation

The unfolding and inactivation of soybean lipoxygenase-1 during urea denaturation has been compared. Equilibrium study indicates that inactivation of the enzyme occurs at low urea concentrations before significant conformational change of the molecule as a whole. In the presence of 6.0 M urea, the unfolding of soybean lipoxygenase-1, as monitored by fluorescence intensity, is a triphasic process, while the inactivation of the enzyme shows single-phase kinetics. The rate constant of inactivation is consistent with that of the fast conformational change of the enzyme. The results suggest that active sites of lipoxygenase-1 containing iron cofactor are situated in a limited region of the enzyme molecule that is more fragile to denaturants than the protein as a whole. The kinetic theory of substrate reactions catalyzed by unstable enzymes (Duggleby (1986) J. Theor. Biol. 123, 67-80) has been applied to study the effect of substrate on enzyme inactivation. On the basis of the kinetic equation of substrate reaction in the presence of urea, inactivation rate constants for the free enzyme and enzyme-substrate complex have been determined. The substrate, linoleic acid, has no effect on inactivation of the ferric form of lipoxygenase-1.

Rapid method to separate the domains of soybean lipoxygenase-1: identification of the interdomain interactions

Lipoxygenase-1 (LOX1) from soybeans was cleaved with chymotrypsin (Ramachandran et al., 31 (1992) 7700-7706). The domains were separated on a Sephadex G-50 column by minimising domain interactions at pH 4.0. The molecular weight and apparent homogeneity of the domains were established by SDS-PAGE. The solution conformation of the 60 kDa and 30 kDa fragments was compared with that of native LOX1. 1-Anilino-8-naphthalene sulphonate (ANS) binding measurements confirmed the exposure of large hydrophobic residues on the surface of the 60 kDa due to separation of the domains. The monomeric nature of the 60 kDa fragment was confirmed by HPLC gel filtration. The increased number of binding sites and magnitude of binding constant suggested the involvement of extensive hydrophobic interactions between the two domains. The essential cofactor iron was with the C-terminal domain. The attempts to resolve and reconstitute the catalytic activity of isolated domains were not successful.

Affecting the activity of soybean lipoxygenase-1

The iron content in soybean lipoxygenase-1 is important for enzyme activity. If the iron is removed by a chelating agent, the activity of the enzyme will decrease. The active center includes the iron ligands and the surrounding environment, and any conformational change in the active center may affect the activity of the enzyme. It is shown that the activity of soybean lipoxygenase-1 is enhanced by chloride anion, phosphate, formate, borate, etc., especially at a lower concentration of substrate. It is also shown that one of four thiols in soybean lipoxygenase-1 is accessible to DTNB at 0.1% SDS without losing great activity, and that all four thiols are accessible to DTNB at 1% SDS and lose all activity. Two or three of the four thiols are accessible to mercuric cyanide without losing great activity. These results support the hypothesis that only one, or possibly two cysteines are responsible for the loss of activity. Two-substrate and two-product binding site models are proposed here and discussed in view of high-resolution X-ray crystal structure.