Use of teratocarcinoma stem cells as a model system for the study of X-chromosome inactivation in vitro.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to D W Martin.
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The product of the enzyme 5-phosphoribosyl-1-pyrophosphate (PPriboseP) synthetase is a substrate for purine, pyrimidine, and pyridine biosynthesis and may be rate limiting for purine biosynthesis. A system developed to electrophoretically separate and histochemically detect PPriboseP synthetase in crude cell extracts has facilitated the identification of electrophoretically variant enzyme forms in the erythrocytes of five patients from a patient population of 200. Additional studies of human organs obtained at autopsy revealed a unique electrophoretic mobility for nearly each organ within the same individual.
Using the S49 T-cell lymphoma system for the study of immunodeficiency diseases, we characterized several variants in purine salvage and transport pathways and studied their responses to the cytotoxic action of adenosine (5-20 micron) in the presence of adenosine deaminase (ADA) inhibitors. Both an adenosine transport deficient mutant and a mutant lacking adenosine (ado) kinase activity are resistant to the cytotoxic effects of adenosine up to 15 micron. Variants lacking hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyl transferase or adenine phosphoribosyltransferase are sensitive to the killing action of adenosine. We monitored the intracellular concentrations of purine and pyrimidine nucleotides, orotate, and PPriboseP in mutant and wild-type cells following the addition of adenosine and an ADA inhibitor. We conclude that at low concentrations, adenosine must be phosphorylated to deplete the cell of pyrimidine nucleotides and PPriboseP and to promote the accumulation of orotate. These alterations account for one mechanism of adenosine toxicity.
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The inherited deficiency of adenosine deaminase (adenosine aminohydrolase; EC 3.5.4.4) activity in humans is associated with an immunodeficiency. Some of the immunodeficient and enzyme-deficient patients respond immunologically to periodic infusions of irradiated erythrocytes containing adenosine deaminase. It has been previously reported that erythrocytes and lymphocytes from immunodeficient ane enzyme-deficient children contained increased concentrations of ATP, and in the one child studied after erythrocyte infusion therapy, the intracellular level of ATP diminished. Using high-pressure liquid chromatography that resolves ATP and 2'-dATP, we have observed greater than 50-fold elevations of dATP in the erythrocytes of immunodeficient, adenosine deaminase-deficient patients but not in the erythrocytes of an immunocompetent adenosine deaminase-deficient patient. The erythrocyte dATP in two unrelated adenosine deaminase-deficient, immunodeficient patients disappeared after infusion of normal erythrocytes. We propose that deoxyadenosine, a substrate of adenosine deaminase, is the potentially toxic substrate in adenosine deaminase deficiency, and that the mediator of the toxic effect is dATP, a recognized potent inhibitor of ribonucleotide reductase.
The overall rate of dissociation and the fraction of bound radioiodinated human growth hormone that dissociated from hepatocytes varied with time of association. A smaller fraction of bound hormone was dissociable from isolated target cells with increased receptor occupancy and increased incubation time prior to the onset of dissociation. The inability of bound label to reequilibrate completely with the medium was demonstrated further by preincubating cells with labeled hormone prior to the initiation of saturation experiments. In such experiments, time-dependent changes in the binding properties of bound label were observed in Scatchard plots, as a result of the inability of prebound label to reequilibrate rapidly with the medium over the time course of such experiments. These data suggest that bound hormone may be distributed between at least two kinetic components. This phenomenon could be interpreted in terms of heterogeneity of sites, a slow conformational change in the receptor, or a model incorporating spatial compartmentalization of sites.
Protein in vitro inhibition of thymidylate synthase (5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate:dUMP C-methyltransferase, EC 2.1.1.45) by 5-fluoro-2'-deoxyuridylate requires 5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate. The cytoxicity of 5-fluoro-2'-deoxyuridine towards cultured L1210 mouse leukemia cells is reduced when intracellular reduced folates are depleted, either by limiting the source in media or by inhibition of dihydrofolate reductase with methotrexate. Likewise, the intracellular amount of 5-fluoro-2'-deoxyuridylate covalently bound to thymidylate synthase in L1210 cells treated with 5-fluoro-2'-deoxyuridine is greatly diminished when cells are depleted of folate cofactors. The folate requirement for optimal growth of L1210 cells is lower than that required for maximal cytotoxicity of 5-fluoro-2'-deoxyuridine. These findings provide a biochemical rationale that may be useful in designing clinical protocols that use 5-fluorinated uracil analogs.
Purine nucleoside phosphorylase (PNP) deficiency is associated with a severe defect in thymus-derived (T)-lymphocyte function combined with normal bone marrow-derived (B)-lymphocyte function. To investigate the role of this enzyme deficiency in the resulting immune dysfunction, we measured the levels of ribonucleoside and deoxyribonucleoside triphosphates in erythrocytes from two unrelated PNP-deficient, T-lymphocyte-deficient patients. Both PNP-deficient patients have abnormally high levels of deoxyguanosine triphosphate (deoxy-GTP) in their erythrocytes (5 and 8 nmol/ml packed erythrocytes). In contrast, normal controls and adenosine deaminase-deficient, immunodeficient patients do not have detectable amounts of deoxyGTP (<0.5 nmol/ml packed erythrocytes). We propose that deoxyguanosine, a substrate of PNP, is the potentially lymphotoxic metabolite in PNP deficiency. The mechanism of toxicity involves phosphorylation of deoxyguanosine to deoxyGTP, which acts as a potent inhibitor of mammalian ribonucleotide reductase.
Purine nucleoside phosphorylase-deficient cultured human fibroblasts accumulate inosine from the medium at 60% of the rate in wild type cells when the extracellular inosine concentration is 10 micronM and 30% of the normal rate when inosine is present at 100 micronM. When 10 micronM inosine is present, uridine but not hypoxanthine inhibits the accumulation of inosine. There exist two transport systems for inosine. One is shared with pyrimidine ribonucleosides and is the predominant one at 10 micronM inosine; the other is purine nucleoside phosphorylase-dependent and prevails at 100 micronM inosine.
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Mutagenized stem cells of a cultured mouse teratocarcinoma cell line were selected for resistance to the purine base analog 6-thioguanine. Cells of a resistant clone were completely deficient in activity of the enzyme hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase (HPRT, IMP:pyrophosphate phosphoribosyltransferase, EC 2.4.2.8), the same X-linked lesion as occurs in human Lesch-Nyhan disease. After microinjection into blastocysts of another genetic strain, the previously malignant cells successfully participated in normal embryogenesis and tumor-free, viable mosaic mice were obtained. Cells of tumor lineage were identified by strain markers in virtually all tissues of some individuals. Mature function of those cells was evident from their tissue-specific products (e.g., melanins, liver proteins). These mutagenized teratocarcinoma cells are therefore developmentally totipotent. Retention of the severe HPRT deficiency in the differentiated state was documented in extracts of mosaic tissues by depressed specific activity of the enzyme, and also by presence of unlabeled clones in autoradiographs of explanted cells incubated in [(3)H]hypoxanthine. Some mosaic individuals had mutant-strain cells in only one or a few tissues. Such animals may provide unique opportunities to identify the tissue sources of particular aspects of the complex disease syndrome. The tissue distribution of HPRT-deficient cells suggests that selection against them is particularly strong in blood of the mosaic mice, as is already known to be the case in human heterozygotes. This phenotypic parallelism supports the expectation that afflicted F(1) male mice that might be obtained from mutant germ cells can serve as a model of the human disease.
The urines of two unrelated children with inherited deficiencies of purine nucleoside phosphorylase have been found to contain significant quantities of orotic acid in addition to the previously reported purine nucleosides. The data are consistent with some cell types of these immunodeficient patients being deplete of pyrophosphoribosylphosphate, a precursor of both purine, and pyrimidine nucleosides. It is suggested that the pyrophosphoribosyl-phosphate-depleted cells may be some component of the thymus-dependent immune system.
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To delineate the normal function of purine nucleoside phosphorylase and to understand the pathogenesis of the immune dysfunction associated with deficiency of this enzyme, we studied purine metabolism in a patient deficient in purine nucleoside phosphorylase, her erythrocytes and cultured fibroblasts. She exhibited severe hypouricemia and hypouricosuria but excreted excessive amounts of purines in her urine, the major components of which were inosine and guanosine. Her urine also contained deoxyinosine, deoxyguanosine and uric acid 9-N riboside. The patient's erythrocytes but not her cultured fibroblasts contained increased concentrations of phosphoribosylpyrophosphate and inosine. The metabolic abnormalities resembled those in the erythrocytes of patients with the Lesch-Nyhan syndrome. Purine nucleoside phosphorylase is a necessary component of the major, if not the sole, pathway for the conversion of purine nucleosides and nucleotides to uric acid. The increased intracellular concentrations of inosine may, by inhibiting adenosine deaminase, be related to the immunologic dysfunction.
In subconfluent cultures of fibroblasts from patients with complete or partial deficiencies of hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase, phosphoribosylpyrophosphate synthetase activity is elevated. The abnormally high catalytic activity of the synthetase appears to account for the overproduction of purines by the cultured mutant cells and presumably for that by the patients.