Oxidative refolding of amyloidogenic variants of human lysozyme

Lysozyme amyloidosis-a report on a large German cohort and the characterisation of a novel amyloidogenic lysozyme gene variant

Lysozyme-derived (ALys) amyloidosis is a rare type of hereditary amyloidosis. Nine amyloidogenic variants and ∼30 affected families have been described worldwide. The most common manifestations are renal dysfunction, gastrointestinal tract symptoms, and sicca syndrome. We report on the clinical course of ten patients from six families representing one of the largest cohorts published so far. Seven patients carried the W64R variant showing the whole spectrum of ALys-associated symptoms. Two patients-a mother-son pair-carried a novel lysozyme variant, which was associated with nephropathy and peripheral polyneuropathy. In accordance with previous findings, the phenotype resembled within these families but did not correlate with the genotype. To gain insights into the effect of the variants at the molecular level, we analysed the structure of lysozyme and performed comparative computational predictions on aggregation propensity and conformational stability. Our study supports that decreased conformational stability is a key factor for lysozyme variants to be prone to aggregation. In summary, ALys amyloidosis is a very rare, but still heterogeneous disease that can manifest at an early age. Our newly identified lysozyme variant is associated with nephropathy and peripheral polyneuropathy. Further research is needed to understand its pathogenesis and to enable the development of new treatments.

A New Folding Kinetic Mechanism for Human Transthyretin and the Influence of the Amyloidogenic V30M Mutation

Protein aggregation into insoluble amyloid fibrils is the hallmark of several neurodegenerative diseases, chief among them Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Although caused by different proteins, these pathologies share some basic molecular mechanisms with familial amyloidotic polyneuropathy (FAP), a rare hereditary neuropathy caused by amyloid formation and deposition by transthyretin (TTR) in the peripheral and autonomic nervous systems. Among the amyloidogenic TTR mutations known, V30M-TTR is the most common in FAP. TTR amyloidogenesis (ATTR) is triggered by tetramer dissociation, followed by partial unfolding and aggregation of the low conformational stability monomers formed. Thus, tetramer dissociation kinetics, monomer conformational stability and competition between refolding and aggregation pathways do play a critical role in ATTR. Here, we propose a new model to analyze the refolding kinetics of WT-TTR and V30M-TTR, showing that at pH and protein concentrations close to physiological, a two-step mechanism with a unimolecular first step followed by a second-order second step adjusts well to the experimental data. Interestingly, although sharing the same kinetic mechanism, V30M-TTR refolds at a much slower rate than WT-TTR, a feature that may favor the formation of transient species leading to kinetic partition into amyloidogenic pathways and, thus, significantly increasing the probability of amyloid formation in vivo.

A nanobody binding to non-amyloidogenic regions of the protein human lysozyme enhances partial unfolding but inhibits amyloid fibril formation

We report the effects of the interaction of two camelid antibody fragments, generally called nanobodies, namely cAb-HuL5 and a stabilized and more aggregation-resistant variant cAb-HuL5G obtained by protein engineering, on the properties of two amyloidogenic variants of human lysozyme, I56T and D67H, whose deposition in vital organs including the liver, kidney, and spleen is associated with a familial non-neuropathic systemic amyloidosis. Both NMR spectroscopy and X-ray crystallographic studies reveal that cAb-HuL5 binds to the α-domain, one of the two lobes of the native lysozyme structure. The binding of cAb-HuL5/cAb-HuL5G strongly inhibits fibril formation by the amyloidogenic variants; it does not, however, suppress the locally transient cooperative unfolding transitions, characteristic of these variants, in which the β-domain and the C-helix unfold and which represents key early intermediate species in the formation of amyloid fibrils. Therefore, unlike two other nanobodies previously described, cAb-HuL5/cAb-HuL5G does not inhibit fibril formation via the restoration of the global cooperativity of the native structure of the lysozyme variants to that characteristic of the wild-type protein. Instead, it inhibits a subsequent step in the assembly of the fibrils, involving the unfolding and structural reorganization of the α-domain. These results show that nanobodies can protect against the formation of pathogenic aggregates at different stages in the structural transition of a protein from the soluble native state into amyloid fibrils, illustrating their value as structural probes to study the molecular mechanisms of amyloid fibril formation. Combined with their amenability to protein engineering techniques to improve their stability and solubility, these findings support the suggestion that nanobodies can potentially be developed as therapeutics to combat protein misfolding diseases.

Disease-related amyloidogenic variants of human lysozyme trigger the unfolded protein response and disturb eye development in Drosophila melanogaster

We have created a Drosophila model of lysozyme amyloidosis to investigate the in vivo behavior of disease-associated variants. To achieve this objective, wild-type (WT) protein and the amyloidogenic variants F57I and D67H were expressed in Drosophila melanogaster using the UAS-gal4 system and both the ubiquitous and retinal expression drivers Act5C-gal4 and gmr-gal4. The nontransgenic w(1118) Drosophila line was used as a control throughout. We utilized ELISA experiments to probe lysozyme protein levels, scanning electron microscopy for eye phenotype classification, and immunohistochemistry to detect the unfolded protein response (UPR) activation. We observed that expressing the destabilized F57I and D67H lysozymes triggers UPR activation, resulting in degradation of these variants, whereas the WT lysozyme is secreted into the fly hemolymph. Indeed, the level of WT was up to 17 times more abundant than the variant proteins. In addition, the F57I variant gave rise to a significant disruption of the eye development, and this correlated to pronounced UPR activation. These results support the concept that the onset of familial amyloid disease is linked to an inability of the UPR to degrade completely the amyloidogenic lysozymes prior to secretion, resulting in secretion of these destabilized variants, thereby leading to deposition and associated organ damage.

Native-state stability determines the extent of degradation relative to secretion of protein variants from Pichia pastoris

We have investigated the relationship between the stability and secreted yield of a series of mutational variants of human lysozyme (HuL) in Pichia pastoris. We show that genes directly involved in the unfolded protein response (UPR), ER-associated degradation (ERAD) and ER-phagy are transcriptionally up-regulated more quickly and to higher levels in response to expression of more highly-destabilised HuL variants and those variants are secreted to lower yield. We also show that the less stable variants are retained within the cell and may also be targeted for degradation. To explore the relationship between stability and secretion further, two different single-chain-variable-fragment (scFv) antibodies were also expressed in P. pastoris, but only one of the scFvs gave rise to secreted protein. The non-secreted scFv was detected within the cell and the UPR indicators were pronounced, as they were for the poorly-secreted HuL variants. The non-secreted scFv was modified by changing either the framework regions or the linker to improve the predicted stability of the scFv and secretion was then achieved and the levels of UPR indicators were lowered Our data support the hypothesis that less stable proteins are targeted for degradation over secretion and that this accounts for the decrease in the yields observed. We discuss the secretion of proteins in relation to lysozyme amyloidosis, in particular, and optimised protein secretion, in general.

Dynamic redox environment-intensified disulfide bond shuffling for protein refolding in vitro: molecular simulation and experimental validation

One challenge in protein refolding is to dissociate the non-native disulfide bonds and promote the formation of native ones. In this study, we present a coarse-grained off-lattice model protein containing disulfide bonds and simulate disulfide bond shuffling during the folding of this model protein. Introduction of disulfide bonds in the model protein led to enhanced conformational stability but reduced foldability in comparison to counterpart protein without disulfide bonds. The folding trajectory suggested that the model protein retained the two-step folding mechanism in terms of hydrophobic collapse and structural rearrangement. The disulfide bonds located in the hydrophobic core were formed before the collapsing step, while the bonds located on the protein surface were formed during the rearrangement step. While a reductive environment at the initial stage of folding favored the formation of native disulfide bonds in the hydrophobic core, an oxidative environment at a later stage of folding was required for the formation of disulfide bonds at protein surface. Appling a dynamic redox environment, that is, one that changes from reductive to oxidative, intensified disulfide bond shuffling and thus resulted in improved recovery of the native conformation. The above-mentioned simulation was experimentally validated by refolding hen-egg lysozyme at different urea concentrations and oxidized glutathione/reduced glutathione (GSSG/GSH) ratios, and an optimal redox environment, in terms of the GSSG to GSH ratio, was identified. The implementation of a dynamic redox environment by tuning the GSSG/GSH ratio further improved the refolding yield of lysozyme, as predicted by molecular simulation.

Arsenic(III) species inhibit oxidative protein folding in vitro

The success of arsenic trioxide in the treatment of acute promyelocytic leukemia has renewed interest in the cellular targets of As(III) species. The effects of arsenicals are usually attributed to their ability to bind vicinal thiols or thiol selenols in prefolded proteins thereby compromising cellular function. The present studies suggest an additional, more pleiotropic, contribution to the biological effects of arsenicals. As(III) species, by avid coordination to the cysteine residues of unfolded reduced proteins, can compromise protein folding pathways. Three representative As(III) compounds (arsenite, monomethylarsenous acid (MMA), and an aryl arsenical (PSAO)) have been tested with three reduced secreted proteins (lysozyme, ribonuclease A, and riboflavin binding protein (RfBP)). Using absorbance, fluorescence, and pre-steady-state methods, we show that arsenicals bind tightly to low micromolar concentrations of these unfolded proteins with stoichiometries of 1 As(III) per 2 thiols for MMA and PSAO and 1 As(III) for every 3 thiols with arsenite. Arsenicals, at 10 microM, strongly disrupt the oxidative folding of RfBP even in the presence of 5 mM reduced glutathione, a competing ligand for As(III) species. MMA catalyzes the formation of amyloid-like monodisperse fibrils using reduced RNase. These in vitro data show that As(III) species can slow, or even derail, protein folding pathways. In vivo, the propensity of As(III) species to bind to unfolded cysteine-containing proteins may contribute to oxidative and protein folding stresses that are prominent features of the cellular response to arsenic exposure.

Normal and aberrant biological self-assembly: Insights from studies of human lysozyme and its amyloidogenic variants

Studies of lysozyme have played a major role over several decades in defining the general principles underlying protein structure, folding, and stability. Following the discovery some 10 years ago that two mutational variants of lysozyme are associated with systemic amyloidosis, these studies have been extended to investigate the mechanism of amyloid fibril formation. This Account describes our present knowledge of lysozyme folding and misfolding, and how the latter can give rise to amyloid disease. It also discusses the significance of these studies for our general understanding of normal and aberrant protein folding in the context of human health and disease.