INGN 007, an oncolytic adenovirus vector, replicates in Syrian hamsters but not mice: comparison of biodistribution studies

Preclinical biodistribution studies with INGN 007, an oncolytic adenovirus (Ad) vector, supporting an early stage clinical trial were conducted in Syrian hamsters, which are permissive for Ad replication, and mice, which are a standard model for assessing toxicity and biodistribution of replication-defective (RD) Ad vectors. Vector dissemination and pharmacokinetics following intravenous administration were examined by real-time PCR in nine tissues and blood at five time points spanning 1 year. Select organs were also examined for the presence of infectious vector/virus. INGN 007 (VRX-007), wild-type Ad5 and AdCMVpA (an RD vector) were compared in the hamster model, whereas only INGN 007 was examined in mice. DNA of all vectors was widely disseminated early after injection, but decayed rapidly in most organs. In the hamster model, DNA of INGN 007 and Ad5 was more abundant than that of the RD vector AdCMVpA at early times after injection, but similar levels were seen later. An increased level of INGN 007 and Ad5 DNA but not AdCMVpA DNA in certain organs early after injection, and the presence of infectious INGN 007 and Ad5 in lung and liver samples at early times after injection, strongly suggests that replication of INGN 007 and Ad5 occurred in several Syrian hamster organs. There was no evidence of INGN 007 replication in mice. In addition to providing important information about INGN 007, the results underscore the utility of the Syrian hamster as a permissive immunocompetent model for Ad5 pathogenesis and oncolytic Ad vectors.

Total synthesis of (+/-)-stemodinone via an efficient ring-exchange strategy

A total synthesis of (+/-)-stemodinone, a tetracyclic stemodane diterpene, from the known tricyclic methyl olefin 11 is described. The key steps involve an efficient ring-exchange reaction and palladium(0)-catalyzed lactone migration. The ring-exchange strategy for controlling the stereochemistry was based on an initial Diels-Alder reaction to form a new ring followed by cleavage of the original ring. Cleavage of the original ring of the Diels-Alder adduct 9 was achieved by an initial regio- and chemoselective Baeyer-Villiger oxidation followed by the Pd(0)-catalyzed lactone-migration reaction reported by us.

Total synthesis of (+/-)-scopadulin

The first total synthesis of (+/-)-scopadulin, an aphidicolane diterpene, is described. The core structure (A/B/C/D ring system) was constructed by an initial synthesis of the B/C/D ring system by our reported methods and a subsequent A ring cyclization by intramolecular aldol condensation. A highly stereoselective cyanation of the tetracyclic enone by Et2AlCN gave a trans-fused A/B ring system with a beta-cyanide at C-4. Stereoselective construction of a quaternary carbon at C-4 was achieved by alpha-alkylation of the cyano group and conversion of the sterically hindered cyano group to a methyl group via our novel reaction for conversion of primary aliphatic amines into alcohols. Finally, the total synthesis of (+/-)-scopadulin was accomplished by a highly chemo- and stereoselective methylation at C-16 and modification of the C-4 alpha-functionality. The stereoselectivity observed in the MeTi(O-i-Pr)3-mediated methylation for the generation of a tertiary axial alcohol at C-16 is extremely high.

The first total synthesis of (+/-)-scopadulin, an antiviral aphidicolane diterpene

[reaction: see text] The first total synthesis of (+/-)-scopadulin was accomplished by a stereoselective construction of a quaternary carbon at C-4, conversion of the hindered cyano group to a methyl group via our novel reaction for conversion of primary aliphatic amines into alcohols, and a highly chemo- and stereoselective methylation at C-16.

Effect of fatty acids and oils on photodegradation of azadirachtin-A

Azadirachtin-A on exposure to UV-light (254 nm) as a thin film on glass surface gave a isomerised (Z)-2-methylbut-2-enoate product. Half-life of azadirachtin-A as thin film under UV light was found to be 48 min. Azadirachtin-A was irradiated along with saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, and fatty oils under ultra-violet light as thin film. Saturated fatty acid increased the rate of photodegradation of azadirachtin-A, whereas unsaturated fatty acids such as oleic, linoleic and elaidic acid reduced the rate of degradation. Castor, linseed and olive oil accelerated the rate of degradation, whereas neem oil showed no or little change in the rate of degradation of azadirachtin-A. None of these fatty acids and fatty oils were effective in controlling the rate of degradation of azadirachtin-A under UV-light as thin film.

The xenopus Suc1/Cks protein promotes the phosphorylation of G(2)/M regulators

The entry into mitosis is controlled by Cdc2/cyclin B, also known as maturation or M-phase promoting factor (MPF). In Xenopus egg extracts, the inhibitory phosphorylations of Cdc2 on Tyr-15 and Thr-14 are controlled by the phosphatase Cdc25 and the kinases Myt1 and Wee1. At mitosis, Cdc25 is activated and Myt1 and Wee1 are inactivated through phosphorylation by multiple kinases, including Cdc2 itself. The Cdc2-associated Suc1/Cks1 protein (p9) is also essential for entry of egg extracts into mitosis, but the molecular basis of this requirement has been unknown. We find that p9 strongly stimulates the regulatory phosphorylations of Cdc25, Myt1, and Wee1 that are carried out by the Cdc2/cyclin B complex. Overexpression of the prolyl isomerase Pin1, which binds to the hyperphosphorylated forms of Cdc25, Myt1, and Wee1 found at M-phase, is known to block the initiation of mitosis in egg extracts. We have observed that Pin1 specifically antagonizes the stimulatory effect of p9 on phosphorylation of Cdc25 by Cdc2/cyclin B. This observation could explain why overexpression of Pin1 inhibits mitotic initiation. These findings suggest that p9 promotes the entry into mitosis by facilitating phosphorylation of the key upstream regulators of Cdc2.

The N-end rule pathway in Xenopus egg extracts

Ubiquitin-dependent degradation of intracellular proteins underlies a multitude of biological processes, including the cell cycle, cell differentiation, and responses to stress. One ubiquitin-dependent proteolytic system is the N-end rule pathway, whose targets include proteins that bear destabilizing N-terminal residues. This pathway, which has been characterized only in somatic cells, is shown here to be present also in germ line cells such as the eggs of the amphibian Xenopus laevis. We demonstrate that the set of destabilizing residues in the N-end rule pathway of Xenopus eggs is similar, if not identical, to that of somatic cells such as mammalian reticulocytes and fibroblasts. It is also shown that the degradation of engineered N-end rule substrates in egg extracts can be strongly and selectively inhibited by dipeptides bearing destabilizing N-terminal residues. This result allowed us to ask whether selective inhibition of the N-end rule pathway in egg extracts influences the apoptosis-like changes that are observed in these extracts. A dipeptide bearing a bulky hydrophobic (type 2) destabilizing N-terminal residue was found to delay the apoptotic changes in egg extracts, whereas dipeptides bearing basic (type 1) destabilizing N-terminal residues had no effect. High activity of the N-end rule pathway in egg extracts provides an alternative to reticulocyte extracts for the in vitro analyses of this pathway.

Xe-p9, a Xenopus Suc1/Cks protein, is essential for the Cdc2-dependent phosphorylation of the anaphase- promoting complex at mitosis

Degradation of mitotic cyclins on exit from M phase occurs by ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis. The ubiquitination of mitotic cyclins is regulated by the anaphase-promoting complex (APC) or cyclosome. Xe-p9, the Xenopus homolog of the Suc1/Cks protein, is required for some step in mitotic cyclin destruction in Xenopus egg extracts. Specifically, if p9 is removed from interphase egg extracts, these p9-depleted extracts are unable to carry out the proteolysis of cyclin B after entry into mitosis and thus remain arrested in M phase. To explore the molecular basis of this defect, we depleted p9 from extracts that had already entered M phase and thus contained an active APC. We found that ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis of cyclin B was not compromised under these circumstances, suggesting that p9 is not directly required for ubiquitination or proteolysis. Further analysis of extracts from which p9 had been removed during interphase showed that, at the beginning of mitosis, these extracts are unable to carry out the hyperphosphorylation of the Cdc27 component of the APC, which coincides with the initial activation of the APC. p9 can be found in a complex with a small fraction of the Cdc27 protein during M phase but not interphase. The phosphorylation of the Cdc27 protein (either associated with the APC or in an isolated, bacterially expressed form) by recombinant Cdc2/cyclin B is strongly enhanced by p9. Our results indicate that p9 directly regulates the phosphorylation of the APC by Cdc2/cyclin B. These studies indicate that the Suc1/Cks protein modulates substrate recognition by a cyclin-dependent kinase.

Xe-p9, a Xenopus Suc1/Cks homolog, has multiple essential roles in cell cycle control

The small Suc1/Cks protein is a ubiquitous subunit of Cdk/cyclin complexes, but its precise function has remained unclear. We have isolated a Xenopus homolog, Xe-p9, of the Suc1/Cks protein by virtue of its ability to rescue a fission yeast mutant that enters mitosis prematurely. To assess its functional role in cell cycle control, we have both overexpressed p9 in Xenopus egg extracts and immunodepleted the protein from these extracts. We found that addition of recombinant His6-p9 to egg extracts results in a pronounced delay of mitosis that can be attributed to an inhibition of the tyrosine dephosphorylation of the inactive Cdc2/cyclin B complex. In immunodepletion studies, we observed that the consequences of removing p9 from egg extracts depend on the stage of the cell cycle. Specifically, in the case of interphase extracts, the removal of p9 abolishes the entry into mitosis as a result of a failure in the activation of the Cdc2/cyclin B complex by tyrosine dephosphorylation. Furthermore, mitotic extracts lacking p9 fail to exit mitosis because of a defect in the destruction of cyclin B. Collectively, these results indicate that p9 has multiple essential roles in the cell cycle by governing the interaction of the Cdc2/cyclin B complex with both positive and negative regulators.

Mutations in T7 RNA polymerase that support the proposal for a common polymerase active site structure

In order to test the proposal that most nucleotide polymerases share a common active site structure and folding topology, we have generated 22 mutations of residues within motifs A, B and C of T7 RNA polymerase (RNAP). Characterization of these T7 RNAP mutants showed the following: (i) most of the mutations resulted in moderate to drastic reductions in T7 RNAP transcriptional activity supporting the idea that motifs A, B and C identify part of the polymerase active site; (ii) the degree of conservation of an amino acid within these motifs correlated with the degree to which mutation of that amino acid reduced transcriptional activity, supporting the predictive ability of this alignment in identifying the most functionally critical residues; (iii) a comparison of DNAP I and T7 RNAP mutants revealed similarities (as well as differences) between corresponding mutant phenotypes; (iv) the Klenow fragment structure is shown to provide a reasonable basis for interpretation of the differential effects of mutating different amino acids within motifs A, B and C in T7 RNAP. These observations support the proposal that these polymerase active sites have similar three-dimensional structures.

Model for the mechanism of bacteriophage T7 RNAP transcription initiation and termination

Characterization of a mutant T7 RNA polymerase (RNAP) that is active on non-promoter templates but has lost the ability to selectively utilize the T7 promoter led to the finding that wild-type T7 RNAP initiates transcription at a high rate on non-promoter templates but that most (approximately 90%) of these initiation events lead to synthesis of dinucleotides only. The anomalously high activity of T7 RNAP on poly(dC) templates (relative to other non-promoter templates) is due to a reduction in the rate of transcription abortion after dinucleotide synthesis rather than an increase in initiation. Evidence is presented that the transition from abortive to processive transcription is associated with a conformational change in T7 RNAP. The stability of the nascent chain in a ternary complex is shown to increase with increasing chain length in the 2 to 14 base range even when the size of the complementary RNA-DNA hybrid remains constant and small (2 to 3 base-pairs). Two mutant polymerases that show increased release of transcripts during abortive transcription and a proteolytically nicked polymerase that exhibits reduced RNA binding are shown to have reduced ability to read-through a T7 RNAP hairpin U-stretch transcription terminator. Single-stranded nucleic acids are shown to bind more tightly than double-stranded nucleic acids to T7 RNAP. These observations and a large set of published studies on T7 RNAP structure and mechanism are accommodated in a relatively simple model of T7 RNAP transcription initiation and termination in which a T7 RNAP that has initiated transcription is proposed to be capable of assuming two functionally distinct conformations: an abortive conformer characterized by a loose association with the nascent RNA and an inability to translocate along the template; and a processive conformer characterized by the stable retention of the nascent RNA and the ability to process stably along the template. The equilibrium between these two conformations is shifted towards the processive form when the nascent chain binds at a site located at least partly on the T7 RNAP N-terminal domain. The interaction requires that the RNA be more than approximately nine bases and this RNAP-RNA interaction plays a primary role in retaining the RNA within the ternary complex.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Isolation and characterization of mutant bacteriophage T7 RNA polymerases

We have isolated and characterized a number of bacteriophage T7 RNAP (RNA polymerase) null mutants. Most of the mutants found to be completely inactive in vitro map to one of the well-conserved blocks of residues in the family of RNAPs homologous to T7 RNAP. The in vitro phenotypes of a smaller number of partially active T7 RNAP mutants, mapping outside these well-conserved regions, support the following assignment of functions in T7 RNAP: (1) the N-terminal region of T7 RNAP contains a nascent RNA binding site that functions to retain the nascent chain within the ternary complex; (2) the region surrounding residue 240 is involved in binding the initiating NTP; (3) residues at the very C terminus of T7 RNAP are involved in binding the elongating NTP.