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Isolation and identification of two potent neurotoxins, aspartic acid and glutamic acid, from yellow star thistle (Centaurea solstitialis).

Horses grazing for prolonged periods on yellow star thistle (YST), a plant which grows wild in western parts of the United States, develop an extrapyramidal disorder known as nigropallidal encephalomalacia (NPE). Attempts have been made to identify, isolate, and characterize the toxins responsible for the disease in animals. Using the organotypic tissue culture system on mouse cortical explants as a specific assay method for neurotoxicological evaluation, it has been possible to isolate and characterize two potent neuroexcitotoxic compounds, aspartic and glutamic acids, the former being the major toxic component in the alcoholic extract of the plant. There is also evidence that other neurotoxic compounds are present in the extract. The detailed procedure for isolation and characterization of these compounds is given here.

Animals↗

Impact of the lysine-188 and aspartic acid-189 inversion on activity of trypsin.

The impact of the charge rearrangement on the specificity of trypsin was tested by an inversion of sequence K188D/D189K maintaining the integrity of the charges of the substrate binding pocket when switching their polarity. In native trypsin, aspartate 189 situated at the bottom of the primary substrate binding pocket interacts with arginine and lysine side chains of the substrate. The kinetic parameters of the wild-type trypsin and K188D/D189K mutant were determined with synthetic tetrapeptide substrates. Compared with trypsin, the mutant K188D/D189K exhibits a 1.5- to 6-fold increase in the Km for the substrates containing arginine and lysine, respectively. This mutant shows a approximately 30-fold decrease of its k(cat) and its second-order rate constant k(cat)/Km decreases approximately 40- and 150-fold for substrates containing arginine and lysine, respectively. Hence, trypsin K188D/D189K displays a large increase in preference for arginine over lysine.

Animals↗

Two aspartic acid residues in the PSST-homologous NUKM subunit of complex I from Yarrowia lipolytica are essential for catalytic activity.

Mitochondrial proton-translocating NADH:ubiquinone oxidoreductase (complex I) couples the transfer of two electrons from NADH to ubiquinone to the translocation of four protons across the mitochondrial inner membrane. Subunit PSST is the most likely carrier of iron-sulfur cluster N2, which has been proposed to play a crucial role in ubiquinone reduction and proton pumping. To explore the function of this subunit we have generated site-directed mutants of all eight highly conserved acidic residues in the Yarrowia lipolytica homologue, the NUKM protein. Mutants D99N and D115N had only 5 and 8% of the wild type catalytic activity, respectively. In both cases complex I was stably assembled but electron paramagnetic resonance spectra of the purified enzyme showed a reduced N2 signal (about 50%). In terms of complex I catalytic activity, almost identical results were obtained when the aspartates were individually changed to glutamates or to glycines. Mutations of other conserved acidic residues had less dramatic effects on catalytic activity and did not prevent assembly of iron-sulfur cluster N2. This excludes all conserved acidic residues in the PSST subunit as fourth ligands of this redox center. The results are discussed in the light of the structural similarities to the homologous small subunit of water-soluble [NiFe] hydrogenases.

Amino Acid Substitution↗