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The 20S proteasome (20S) is an intracellular threonine proteinase (Mr 750,000) that plays important roles in many cellular regulations. Several synthetic peptide inhibitors and bacteria-derived inhibitors such as lactacystin and epoxomicin have been identified as potent proteasome inhibitors. However, essentially no protein proteinase inhibitor has been characterized. By examining several small size protein proteinase inhibitors, we found that a well-known serine proteinase inhibitor from bovine pancreas, basic pancreatic trypsin inhibitor (BPTI), inhibits the 20S in vitro and ex vivo. Inhibition of the 20S by BPTI was time- and concentration-dependent, and stoichiometric. To inhibit the 20S activity, BPTI needs to enter into the interior of the 20S molecule. The molar ratio of BPTI to the 20S in the complex was estimated as approximately six BPTI to one 20S, thereby two sets of three peptidase activities (trypsin-like, chymotrypsin-like and caspase-like) of the 20S were all inhibited. These results indicate that an entrance hole to the 20S formed by seven α-subunits is sufficiently large for BPTI to enter. This report is essentially the initial description of the inhibition of a threonine proteinase by a protein serine proteinase inhibitor, suggesting a common mechanism of inhibition between serine and threonine proteinases by a natural protein proteinase inhibitor. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We reported the first case of a congenital histidine-rich glycoprotein deficiency (HRG Tokushima) in which substitution of Gly85 with Glu (G85E) in the first cystatin domain resulted in intracellular degradation and a low plasma level of HRG [ShigeMyo, T.et al (1998) Blood 91, 128–133]. Recently, we identified the gene mutation of a second case of HRG deficiency as a Cys223 to Arg (C223R) mutation in the second cystatin domain. To investigate the molecular and cellular bases of these deficiencies, we expressed these HRG mutants in baby hamster kidney (BHK) cells. Pulse-chase experiments in the absence and presence of various proteinase inhibitors revealed that, while wild-type HRG was completely secreted during 4-h chase periods, both the G85E and C223R mutants were only partially secreted and primarily degraded within the cells. The intracellular degradation of the C223R mutant was almost completely inhibited in the presence of a proteasome inhibitor, lactacystin, carbobenzoxy-leucyl-leucyl-leucinal or N-acetyl-leu-cyl-leucyl-norleucinal, resulting in increased secretion of the C223R mutant, and thus implicating the proteasome system in this degradation process. In contrast, the sum of the amounts of the G86E mutant inside and outside the cells decreased during the chase periods even in the presence of the proteasome inhibitor, carbobenzoxy-leucyl-leucyl-leucinal or N-acetyl-leucyl-leucyl-norleucinal, although proteasome-specific inhibitor lactacystin and one of the cysteine protease inhibitors, E-64-d, prevented the intracellular degradation. These results suggested that intracellular degradation of G85E HRG occurred to some extent through a hitherto unknown mechanism. Similar studies involving recombinant mutants in which Gly85 or Cys223 was replaced with several other amino acids revealed that proteins with mutations leading to the destruction of the predicted β-sheet structure of the cystatin domains were eliminated by the intracellular quality control system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two new forms of proteasomes, designated as the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane-associated proteasome (ERa proteasome) and ER membrane-bound proteasome (ERb proteasome), were purified to homogeneity from 0.0125 and 2.5% sodium cholate extracts, respectively, of a rat liver microsomal fraction. SDS-PAGE analysis revealed that the purified ERa and ERb proteasomes were composed of multiple subunits similar to the cytosolic 20S proteasome. However, electrophoretic, structural and immunochemical differences between the ERa, ERb and cytosolic 20S proteasomes were observed on native PAGE, two-dimensional (2D) PAGE, and immunoblot analyses. Purification of ERb from a 2.5% sodium cholate extract of the trypsin-treated microsomal fraction yielded a trypsin-modified form of ERb (tERb), which lacked the C2 subunit at least. On the other hand, no ERa proteasome was obtained from the 0.0125% sodium cholate extract of the trypsin-treated microsomes, suggesting that ERa and ERb are ER membrane-associated and -bound proteasomes, respectively. The ERa, ERb, and cytosolic 20S proteasomes exhibited similar specificities as to peptide hydrolyzing activity, although differences in their activities were noted in the presence of SDS and phospholipid. With respect to the proteolysis of protein substrates, only the ERb proteasome cleaved β-casein, and it also degraded reduced and carboxymethylated lysozyme considerably faster than the cytosolic 20S and ERa proteasomes. Collectively our results suggest that the ERa and ERb proteasomes may play roles in intracellular proteolysis distinct from that of the cytosolic 20S proteasome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genomic DNA libraries were screened for the human histidine-rich glycoprotein (HRG) gene and a sequence of 15,499 nucleotides was determined. The gene is composed of 7 exons and 6 introns, and all the exon-intron boundaries match the consensus GT/AG sequence for donor and acceptor splice sites. Each of cystatin-like domains I and II of HRG is encoded by three exons, exons I to III and exons IV to VI, respectively, like those of other members of the cystatin superfamily. The entire C-tenninal half of the molecule is encoded by the largest exon, VII. The first 103 nucleotides of the cDNA sequence reported for human HRG [Koide, T., Foster, D., Yoshitake, S., and Davie, E.W. (1986) Biochemistry 25, 2220-2225] could not be found in the determined gene sequence. A homology search of this sequence against a database showed the complete matching to a part of the yeast mitochondrial DNA encoding 21S ribosomal RNA. Rapid amplification of cDNA 5' ends (5-RACE) analysis revealed that the cDNA has multiple 5'-ends and that a possible starting point is nucleotide 104 of the reported cDNA sequence. These results suggest that the first 103 nucleotides of the cDNA sequence reported for human HRG originated from yeast mitochondrial DNA and were incidentally incorporated into the HRG cDNA in the process of the construction of a cDNA library. Various fragments obtained on restriction endonuclease digestion of the 5-noncoding region of the HRG gene were ligated to the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) gene and then transfected into HepG2 and 293 cells to analyze the promoter activity. The sequence between —262 and —1 from the putative translation initiation site supported the expression of CAT in HepG2 cells but not in 293 cells, suggesting that this segment promotes the liver-specific transcription of the human HRG gene. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Inherited antithrombin deficiency is associated with a predisposition for familial venous thromboembolic disease. Pleiotropic effect-type mutants of antithrombin that have an amino acid replacement in a distal hinge region including strands 1C, 4B, and 5B of the polypeptide chain are known to exhibit impaired interactions with both thrombin and heparin, coupled with a secretion defect. To examine the mechanism of pleiotropic effect-type antithrombin deficiency, we expressed three mutants, Oslo (Ala404→Thr), Kyoto (Arg406→Met), and Utah (Pro407→Leu), in baby hamster kidney (BHK) cells, and compared their secretion rates, affinities for heparin and abilities to form thrombin-antithrombin (TAT) complexes with those of wild-type (Wt) antithrombin. Pulse-chase experiments showed that the Oslo- and Kyoto-mutants were secreted at rates similar to Wt antithrombin. In contrast, the Utah-mutant underwent partial intracellular degradation. The intra-cellular degradation of the Utah-mutant was not inhibited by lysosomotropic inhibitors, but by proteasome inhibitors such as carbobenzoxy-L-leucyl-L-leucyl-L-leucinal (LLL) and lactacystin, indicating that a part of the Utah-mutant was degraded by proteasome through quality control in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Crossed immunoelectropho-resis in the presence of heparin showed that only the Oslo-mutant lacks heparin-binding ability. Incubation with thrombin showed that the Kyoto- and Utah-mutants, but not the Oslo-mutant, formed a weak but detectable TAT complex. Furthermore, heparin enhanced the TAT complex formation by the Kyoto- and Utah-mutants, suggesting heparin cofactor activities of these mutants. These results show that each of the Oslo-, Kyoto-, and Utah-mutants exhibits different properties as to secretion, intracellular degradation and functional activity, although they are grouped as pleiotropic effect-type mutants. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Protein C is a zymogen of an anticoagulant vitamin K-dependent serine protease. Inherited protein C deficiency is often associated with a high risk for venous thromboembolism. It is characteristic of protein C deficiency that most single amino acid replacements result in type I (secretion defect) deficiency. To determine the molecular and cellular bases of protein C deficiency, we expressed recombinant human protein C mutants in which Arg15 was mutated to either Gly, Trp, Gln, Leu, or Pro by a single base exchange. Arg15 is one of the conservative residues in the γ-carboxyglutamic acid (Gla) domains of the vitamin K-dependent coagulation factors, and is also one of the high frequency multiple mutation sites in protein C deficiency. In transient expression studies using human kidney 293 cells, the relative amounts of Arg15 mutants secreted into the medium and determined by enzymelinked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) were as follows: Gly, 42%; Trp, 14%; Gln, 54%; Leu, 22%; and Pro, 13%, the amount of wild-type (Wt) protein C being taken as 100%. Thus, the order of the secreted amounts of the recombinant mutants was determined to be Wt >Gln>Gly>Leu>Trp, Pro. Pulse-chase experiments using both transiently-transfected and a pool of stably-transfected 293 cells, and stably-transfected BHK cells showed the same order of secretion efficiency. Since this order correlated well with that of the hydrophobicity scale of amino acid side chains, a conformational alteration of the Gla domain resulting in impaired secretion may be dependent on the hydrophobicity of the replaced amino acid. In transient cells, the relative radioactivities of pulse-labeled bands of all recombinant protein C were almost equal, suggesting that the same translational efflciency for Wt and all Arg15 mutants. All of the Arg15-mutated protein C precursors were shown to be located in the same organelle as protein disulfide isomerase (PDI), an endoplasmic reticulum-resident protein, and were sensitive to endoglymidase H digestion. These results suggest that mutations of the highly conserved Arg15 in the Gla domain of protein C caueed a secretion defect to variable degrees depending on replaced amino acid residue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]