• Journal of Microbiology
• /
• v.38 no.4
• /
• pp.218-223
• /
• 2000

Using two drugs, tunicamycin and brefeldin A, which affect protein processing, we investigated the intracellular processing mechanism of secreted aspartyl proteinase 1 (SAPl) of Candide albicans. Three intracellular forms of SAPI were detected by immunoblotting using menoclonal antibody (MAb) CAPl. Their molecular weights were approximately 40, 41 and 45 kDa, respectively. The 41 kDa protein is a glycoprotein and may be the same as the extracellular form judging by its molecular mass. The 40 kDa protein was the unglycosylated form and its molecular mass coincided with deglycosylated SAPl and the 45 kDa protein was also the unglycosylated form. Neither the 40 and 45 kDa proteins were detected in the culture supernatant of C. albicans. These suggested that the 40 and 45 kDa proteins might be intracellular precursor forms of SAPI. These results show that SAPI is translated as a 45 kDa precusor form in the endoplasmic reticulum and the 45 kDa precursor farm undergoes proteolytic cleavage after translocation into the Golgi apparatus, generating the 40 kDa precursor form. This 40 kDa precursor is converted into a 41 kDa mature form through glycosylation in the Golgi apparatus. The mature form of the 41 kDa protein is sorted into secretary vesicles and finally released into the extracellular space through membrane fusion. When the glycan region of SAPl was digested with N-glycosidase F, both stability and activity of the enzyme decreased. These results indicate that the glycan attached to the enzyme may, at least in parti be related to enzyme stability and activity.

• BMB Reports
• /
• v.40 no.5
• /
• pp.617-624
• /
• 2007

Protein arginine methylation is a posttranslational modification involved in various cellular functions including cell signaling, protein subcellular localization and transcriptional regulation. We analyze the protein arginine methyltransferases (PRMTs) that catalyze the formation of methylarginines in porcine brain. We fractionated the brain extracts and determined the PRMT activities as well as the distribution of different PRMT proteins in subcellular fractions of porcine brain. The majority of the type I methyltransferase activities that catalyze the formation of asymmetric dimethylarginines was in the cytosolic S3 fraction. High specific activity of the methyltransferase was detected in the S4 fraction (high-salt stripping of the ultracentrifugation precipitant P3 fraction), indicating that part of the PRMT was peripherally associated with membrane and ribosomal fractions. The amount and distribution of PRMT1 are consistent with the catalytic activity. The elution patterns from gel filtration and anion exchange chromatography also indicate that the type I activity in S3 and S4 are mostly from PRMT1. Our results suggest that part of the type I arginine methyltransferases in brains, mainly PRMT1, are sequestered in an inactive form as they associated with membranes or large subcellular complexes. Our biochemical analyses confirmed the complex distribution of different PRMTs and implicate their regulation and catalytic activities in brain.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
• /
• v.37 no.3
• /
• pp.262-268
• /
• 2010

Antibodies are powerful and versatile tools to play a critical role in the diagnosis and treatment of many diseases. Their application has been enhanced significantly with the advanced recombinant DNA and heterologonous expression technologies, allowing to produce immunotherapeutic proteins with improved biofunctional properties. However, with currently available technologies, mammalian cell-based therapeutic antibody production, as an alternative for production in humans and animals, is often not plentiful for passive immunotherapeutics in treatment of many diseases. Recently, plant expression systems for therapeutic antibodies have become well-established. Thus, plants have been considered to provide an attractive alternative production system for therapeutic antibodies, as plants have several advantages such as the lack of human pathogens, and low cost of upstream production and flexible scale-up of highly valuable recombinant glycoproteins. Recent advances in modification of posttranslational processing for human-like glycosylation in transgenic plants will make it possible that plant can become a suitable protein expression system over the animal cellbased current production system. This review will discuss recent advances in plant expression technology and issues for their application to therapeutic antibody production.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.691-695
• /
• 2016

Protein glycosylation is the most common posttranslational modification in mammalian cells. Aberrant protein glycosylation has been reported in various diseases, including cancer. We identified and quantified the glycan structures of O-linked glycoprotein from cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) cell lines from different histological types and compared their profiles by nanospray ionization-linear ion trap mass spectrometry (NSI-$MS^n$). Five human CCA cell lines, K100, M055, M139, M213 and M214 were characterized. The results showed that the O-linked glycans of the CCA cell lines comprised tri- to hexa-saccharides with terminal galactose and sialic acids: NeuAc1Gal1GalNAc1, Gal2GlcNAc1GalNAc1, NeuAc2Gal1GalNAc1 NeuAc1Gal2GlcNAc1GalNAc1 and NeuAc2Gal2GlcNAc1GalNAc1 All five CCA cell lines showed a similar glycan pattern, but with differences in their quantities. NeuAc1Gal1GalNAc1 proved to be the most abundant structure in poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma (K100; 57.1%), moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma (M055; 42.6%) and squamous cell carcinoma (M139; 43.0%), while moderately to poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma (M214; 40.1%) and adenosquamous cell carcinoma (M213; 34.7%) appeared dominated by $NeuA_{c2}Gal_1GalNA_{c1}$. These results demonstrate differential expression of the O-linked glycans in the different histological types of CCA. All five CCA cell lines have abundant terminal sialic acid (NeuAc) O-linked glycans, suggesting an important role for sialic acid in cancer cells. Our structural analyses of glycans may provide important information regarding physiology of disease-related glycoproteins in CCA.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.19 no.7
• /
• pp.635-646
• /
• 2009

Rapid and accurate diagnosis of diseases is very important for appropriate treatment of patients. Recent advances in molecular-level interaction and detection technologies are upgrading the clinical diagnostics by providing new ways of diagnosis, with higher speed and accuracy. In particular, DNA microarrays can be efficiently used in clinical diagnostics which span from discovery of diseaserelevant genes to diagnosis using its biomarkers. Diagnostic DNA microarrays have been used for genotyping and determination of disease-relevant genes or agents causing diseases, mutation analysis, screening of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), detection of chromosome abnormalities, and global determination of posttranslational modification. The performance of DNA-microarray-based diagnosis is continuously improving by the integration of other tools. Thus, DNA microarrays will play a central role in clinical diagnostics and will become a gold standard method for disease diagnosis. In this paper, various applications of DNA microarrays in disease diagnosis are reviewed. Special effort was made to cover the information disclosed in the patents so that recent trends and missing applications can be revealed.

• Preventive Nutrition and Food Science
• /
• v.7 no.4
• /
• pp.432-436
• /
• 2002

A proteomic map of Hanwoo loin was obtained using 2-D SDS-PAGE and mass spectrometric analysis: 27 bovine proteins plus 2 proteins having similarities to other mammal proteins out of 52 proteins analyzed. The identified proteins consisted of 50 % basic house keeping proteins involved in metabolism, 30% muscle proteins, and other miscellaneous proteins. Many proteins on the 2-D gel with different molecular weights and isoelectric points were identified as same proteins due to posttranslational modification. As many of the identified house keeping proteins showed the high sequence similarities to other mammal equivalent proteins, searching the mammal databases could confirm the annotation. The preliminary identification of the proteome in bovine loin tissue could reveal the functions of proteins at over 50 % of chance with high fidelities. Using the established loin proteome map, proteomic difference between 1 yr and 2 yr Hanwoo loin tissues were compared on 2D gel. Regardless of the difficulty normalizing protein concentrations and sample-to-sample variations, three unidentified proteins and myoglobin were selected as up-regulated proteins during the fat deposition period. This study contributes to a move thorough and holistic understanding of beef meat, helping to build the basis for future identification of new markers for good quality meat.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
• /
• v.49 no.4
• /
• pp.341-347
• /
• 2011

Acanthamoeba infection is difficult to treat because of the resistance property of Acanthamoeba cyst against the host immune system, diverse antibiotics, and therapeutic agents. To identify encystation mediating factors of Acanthamoeba, we compared the transcription profile between cysts and trophozoites using microarray analysis. The DNA chip was composed of 12,544 genes based on expressed sequence tag (EST) from an Acanthamoeba ESTs database (DB) constructed in our laboratory, genetic information of Acanthamoeba from TBest DB, and all of Acanthamoeba related genes registered in the NCBI. Microarray analysis indicated that 701 genes showed higher expression than 2 folds in cysts than in trophozoites, and 859 genes were less expressed in cysts than in trophozoites. The results of real-time PCR analysis of randomly selected 9 genes of which expression was increased during cyst formation were coincided well with the microarray results. Eukaryotic orthologous groups (KOG) analysis showed an increment in T article (signal transduction mechanisms) and O article (posttranslational modification, protein turnover, and chaperones) whereas significant decrement of C article (energy production and conversion) during cyst formation. Especially, cystein proteinases showed high expression changes (282 folds) with significant increases in real-time PCR, suggesting a pivotal role of this proteinase in the cyst formation of Acanthamoeba. The present study provides important clues for the identification and characterization of encystation mediating factors of Acanthamoeba.

• Interdisciplinary Bio Central
• /
• v.4 no.3
• /
• pp.6.1-6.12
• /
• 2012

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a complicated neurodegenerative disorder although it is oftentimes defined by clinical motor symptoms originated from age dependent and progressive loss of dopaminergic neurons in the midbrain. The pathogenesis of PD involves dopaminergic and nondopaminergic neurons in many brain regions and the molecular mechanisms underlying the death of different cell types still remain to be elucidated. There are indications that PD causing disease processes occur in a global scale ranging from DNA to RNA, and proteins. Several PD-associated genes have been reported to play diverse roles in controlling cellular functions in different levels, such as chromatin structure, transcription, processing of mRNA, translational modulation, and posttranslational modification of proteins. The advent of quantitative high throughput screening (HTS) tools makes it possible to monitor systemic changes in DNA, RNA and proteins in PD models. Combined with dopamine neuron isolation or derivation of dopamine neurons from PD patient specific induced pluripotent stem cells (PD iPSCs), HTS techonologies will provide opportunities to draw PD causing sequences of molecular events in pathologically relevant PD samples. Here I discuss previous studies that identified molecular functions in which PD genes are involved, especially those signaling pathways that can be efficiently studied using HTS methodologies. Brief descriptions of quantitative and systemic tools looking at DNA, RNA and proteins will be followed. Finally, I will emphasize the use and potential benefits of PD iPSCs-derived dopaminergic neurons to screen signaling pathways that are initiated by PD linked gene mutations and thus causative for dopaminergic neurodegneration in PD.

• Molecules and Cells
• /
• v.38 no.1
• /
• pp.81-88
• /
• 2015

Flowering time (or heading date) is controlled by intrinsic genetic programs in response to environmental cues, such as photoperiod and temperature. Rice, a facultative short-day (SD) plant, flowers early in SD and late in long-day (LD) conditions. Casein kinases (CKs) generally act as positive regulators in many signaling pathways in plants. In rice, Heading date 6 (Hd6) and Hd16 encode $CK2{\alpha}$ and CKI, respectively, and mainly function to delay flowering time. Additionally, the major LD-dependent floral repressors Hd2/Oryza sativa Pseudo-Response Regulator 37 (OsPRR37;hereafter PRR37) and Ghd7 also confer strong photoperiod sensitivity. In floral induction, Hd16 acts upstream of Ghd7 and CKI interacts with and phosphorylates Ghd7. In addition, Hd6 and Hd16 also act upstream of Hd2. However, whether CKI and $CK2{\alpha}$ directly regulate the function of PRR37 remains unclear. Here, we use in vitro pull-down and in vivo bimolecular fluorescence complementation assays to show that CKI and $CK2{\alpha}$ interact with PRR37. We further use in vitro kinase assays to show that CKI and $CK2{\alpha}$ phosphorylate different regions of PRR37. Our results indicate that direct posttranslational modification of PRR37 mediates the genetic interactions between these two protein kinases and PRR37. The significance of CK-mediated phosphorylation for PRR37 and Ghd7 function is discussed.

• Development and Reproduction
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.207-215
• /
• 2009

Numerous factors can affect the activities of hypothalamus-pituitary-gonad (HPG) hormonal axis, resulting in alteration of reproductive capacity or status such as onset of puberty and menopause. Soon after the finding of leptin, a multifunctional hormone secreted from adipocytes, a close relationship between reproduction and body energy balance have been manifested. Ghrelin, another multifunctional hormone from gastrointestinal tract, is an endogenous ligand of growth hormone secretagogue receptor (GHSR), and is thought to be a counterpart of leptin in the regulation of energy homeostasis. As expected, ghrelin can also modulate the reproductive capacity through the modulation of activities of HPG axis. This paper summarizes the current knowledge on the discovery, gene structures, tissue distribution and roles of ghrelin and GHSRs in mammalian reproduction in particular modulation of reproductive hormone secretion in HPG axis. Like POMC gene expression in pituitary gland, preproghrelin gene can generate a complex repertoire of transcripts which further undergo alternative splicing and posttranslational modifications. Concerning the roles of preproghrelin gene products in the control of body physiology except energy homeostasis, limited knowledge is available so far. Several lines of evidence, however, show the interplay of ghrelin between metabolism and reproduction. In rat and human, the distribution of ghrelin receptor GHSRs (GHSR1a and GHSR1b) has been confirmed not only in the hypothalamus and pituitary which were originally postulated as target of ghrelin but also in the testis and ovary. Expression of the preproghrelin gene in the brain and gonads was also verified, suggesting the local role (s) of ghrelin in HPG axis. Ghrelin might play a negative modulator in the secretions of hypothalamic GnRH, pituitary gonadotropins and gonadal steroids though the action on pituitary is still questionable. Recent studies suggest the involvement of ghrelin in regulation of puberty onset and possibly of menopause entry. It is now evident that ghrelin is a crucial hormomal component in 'brain-gut' axis, and is a strong candidate links between metabolism and reproduction. Opposite to that for leptin, ghrelin signaling is likely representing the 'hunger' state of body energy balance and is necessary to avoid the energy investment into reproduction which has not a top priority in maintaining homeostasis. Further researches are needed to gain a deep insight into the more precise action mechanism and role of ghrelin in reproduction, and to guarantee the successful biomedical applications.