Mechanisms of iron and copper-frataxin interactions.

Frataxin is a mitochondrial protein whose deficiency is the cause of Friedreich's ataxia, a hereditary neurodegenerative disease. This protein plays a role in iron-sulfur cluster biosynthesis, protection against oxidative stress and iron metabolism. In an attempt to provide a better understanding of the role played by metals in its metabolic functions, the mechanisms of mitochondrial metal binding to frataxin in vitro have been investigated. A purified recombinant yeast frataxin homolog Yfh1 binds two Cu(ii) ions with a Kd1(CuII) of 1.3 × 10-7 M and a Kd2(CuII) of 3.1 × 10-4 M and a single Cu(i) ion with a higher affinity than for Cu(ii) (Kd(CuI) = 3.2 × 10-8 M). Mn(ii) forms two complexes with Yfh1 (Kd1(MnII) = 4.0 × 10-8 M; Kd2(MnII) = 4.0 × 10-7 M). Cu and Mn bind Yfh1 with higher affinities than Fe(ii). It is established for the first time that the mechanisms of the interaction of iron and copper with frataxin are comparable and involve three kinetic steps. The first step occurs in the 50-500 ms range and corresponds to a first metal uptake. This is followed by two other kinetic processes that are related to a second metal uptake and/or to a change in the conformation leading to thermodynamic equilibrium. Frataxin deficient Δyfh1 yeast cells exhibited a marked growth defect in the presence of exogenous Cu or Mn. Mitochondria from Δyfh1 strains also accumulated higher amounts of copper, suggesting a functional role of frataxin in vivo in copper homeostasis.

Changes in mitochondrial glutathione levels and protein thiol oxidation in ∆yfh1 yeast cells and the lymphoblasts of patients with Friedreich's ataxia.

Friedreich's ataxia (FRDA) is a neurodegenerative disease caused by low levels of the mitochondrial protein frataxin. The main phenotypic features of frataxin-deficient human and yeast cells include iron accumulation in mitochondria, iron-sulfur cluster defects and high sensitivity to oxidative stress. Frataxin deficiency is also associated with severe impairment of glutathione homeostasis and changes in glutathione-dependent antioxidant defenses. The potential biological consequences of oxidative stress and changes in glutathione levels associated with frataxin deficiency include the oxidation of susceptible protein thiols and reversible binding of glutathione to the SH of proteins by S-glutathionylation. In this study, we isolated mitochondria from frataxin-deficient ∆yfh1 yeast cells and lymphoblasts of FRDA patients, and show evidence for a severe mitochondrial glutathione-dependent oxidative stress, with a low GSH/GSSG ratio, and thiol modifications of key mitochondrial enzymes. Both yeast and human frataxin-deficient cells had abnormally high levels of mitochondrial proteins binding an anti-glutathione antibody. Moreover, proteomics and immunodetection experiments provided evidence of thiol oxidation in α-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase (KGDH) or subunits of respiratory chain complexes III and IV. We also found dramatic changes in GSH/GSSG ratio and thiol modifications on aconitase and KGDH in the lymphoblasts of FRDA patients. Our data for yeast cells also confirm the existence of a signaling and/or regulatory process involving both iron and glutathione.

A new route to trihydroxamate-containing artificial siderophores and synthesis of a new fluorescent probe.

A fluorescent labelled artificial siderophore 1 was synthesized by coupling a 7-nitrobenz-2-oxa-1,3-diazole (NBD) derivative to the terminal amino group of a new trihydroxamate-containing amine 2, a ferrichrome-type siderophore that was obtained from tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane. Compound 1 was shown to be a suitable tool for experiments on siderophore transport and uptake processes in various organisms cells and particularly in Candida albicans cells.

Aft2p, a novel iron-regulated transcription activator that modulates, with Aft1p, intracellular iron use and resistance to oxidative stress in yeast.

The yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, contains a transcription activator, Aft1p, that regulates the transcription of the high affinity iron transport system genes. This report describes the properties of Aft2p, a protein 39% homologous to Aft1p. Aft2p was found to activate transcription. Overproduction of Aft2p activates the transcription of the AFT1 target gene FET3. The double aft1aft2 mutant was unable to grow in iron-deprived conditions. Because a fet3 mutant does not show this deficiency, the defect is not solely caused by mis-regulation of iron transport but also involves defective iron use by the cells. The aft1 cells were unable to grow in aerobic conditions on plates containing raffinose as the sole carbon source. The inability to grow on raffinose is not caused by the cell iron content being too low to sustain respiratory metabolism, because the oxygen consumption of aft1 mutants showed that their respiratory activity is 2-fold higher than that of controls. The double aft1aft2 mutant also has many phenotypes related to oxidative stress such as H(2)O(2) hypersensitivity, oxygen-dependent copper toxicity, and oxygen-dependent methionine auxotrophy, which are suppressed in anaerobiosis. These results suggest that Aft2p and Aft1p have overlapping roles in the control of iron-regulated pathway(s) connected to oxidative stress resistance in yeast.

Iron uptake by the yeast Pichia guilliermondii. Flavinogenesis and reductive iron assimilation are co-regulated processes.

Pichia guilliermondii cells overproduce riboflavin (vitamin B2) in responce to iron deprivation. The increase in ferrireductase activity in iron-starved P. guilliermondii cells correlated with the increase in flavin excretion. As in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a typical b-type cytochrome spectrum was associated with the plasma membrane fraction of P. guilliermondii and the cell ferrireductase activity was strongly inhibited by diphenylene-iodonium, an inhibitor of flavoproteins, in both yeasts. Mutants of P. guilliermondii with increased ferrireductase activity were selected for further investigation of the relationship between iron reduction/uptake and flavin production. The obtained mutation has been called hit (high iron transport). A hit mutant with a single recessive mutation showed the following phenotype: high ferrireductase activity, increased rate of iron uptake and elevated flavinogenic activity. Cu(II) (50 microns) strongly inhibited the growth of the hit mutant compared to the wild-type. The mutant cells grown in copper-supplemented medium (5-25 microns) showed an increase of the ferrireductase activity (up to 2-3 fold). The copper content of the mutant cells grown under these conditions was also higher (1.5-2 fold) than that of the wild-type. The role of the HIT gene of P. guillermondii in the regulation of iron, copper and flavin metabolisms is discussed.

Cytochrome P-450 reductase is responsible for the ferrireductase activity associated with isolated plasma membranes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Cytochrome P-450 reductase (encoded by the NCP1 gene) was found to catalyse all the NADPH-dependent ferrireductase activities associated with isolated plasma membranes of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We therefore examined the contribution of this enzyme to the ferrireductase activity of cells in vivo. Cytochrome P-450 reductase was shown to be not essential for the cell ferrireductase activity, but it influenced this activity, with different effects on the Fre1- and the Fre2-dependent reductase systems. Overexpression of FRE1 did not lead to an increased ferrireductase activity of the cells when NCP1 was repressed. In contrast, cells that overexpressed FRE2 had maximal ferrireductase activity when NCP1 was repressed. The degree of NCP1 expression also affected the amount of iron and copper accumulated by the cells during growth. The biochemical implications and the physiological significance of these observations are discussed.

Evidence for the Saccharomyces cerevisiae ferrireductase system being a multicomponent electron transport chain.

We have studied the relationships between in vivo (whole cells) and in vitro (plasma membranes) ferrireductase activity in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Isolated plasma membranes were enriched in the product of the FRE1 gene and had NADPH dehydrogenase activity that was increased when the cells were grown in iron/copper-deprived medium. The diaphorase activity was, however, independent of Fre1p, and Fre1p itself had no ferrireductase activity in vitro. There were striking similarities between the yeast ferrireductase system and the neutrophil NADPH oxidase: oxygen could act as an electron acceptor in the ferrireductase system, and Fre1p, like gp91, is a glycosylated hemoprotein with a b-type cytochrome spectrum. The ferrireductase system was sensitive to the NADPH oxidase inhibitor diphenylene iodonium (DPI). DPI inhibition proceeded with two apparent Ki values (high and low affinity binding) in whole wild-type and Deltafre2 cells and with one apparent Ki in Deltafre1 cells (high affinity binding) and in plasma membranes (low affinity binding). These results suggest that the Fre1-dependent ferrireductase system involves at least two components (Fre1p and an NADPH dehydrogenase component) differing in their sensitivities to DPI, as in the neutrophil NADPH oxidase. A third component, the product of the UTR1 gene, was shown to act synergistically with Fre1p to increase the cell ferrireductase activity.

Effects of cadmium and of YAP1 and CAD1/YAP2 genes on iron metabolism in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Saccharomyces cerevisiae was more resistant to cadmium when the growth medium contained excess iron. Cadmium reduced the amount of iron taken up by cells during growth, and the cell ferrireductase activity was also strongly inhibited. These effects depended on the YAP1 and CAD1/YAP2 gene dosage. The growth rate of cells in iron-deficient conditions and their ferrireductase activity in the absence of added cadmium were also strongly affected by the dosage of YAP1 and CAD1/YAP2 genes. Our results suggest an indirect influence of these genes on iron metabolism, possibly via modification of the cell redox status.

Crystallization and preliminary X-ray analysis of a lipase from Bacillus subtilis.

Single crystals of the lipase from Bacillus subtilis have been obtained using a mixture of polyethylene glycol 4000 and sodium sulphate solution as the precipitant. The crystals grow at room temperature in two to three weeks in the presence of n-octyl-beta-D-glucoside. They belong to the monoclinic space group C2 with a = 121.20 A, b = 93.19 A, c = 80.96 A, and beta = 110.67 degrees, with four protein molecules per asymmetric unit. The crystals diffract to at least 2.5 A resolution and are suitable for an X-ray structure analysis.

The structure-function relationship of the lipases from Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Bacillus subtilis.

Within the BRIDGE T-project on lipases we investigate the structure-function relationships of the lipases from Bacillus subtilis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Construction of an overproducing Bacillus strain allowed the purification of > 100 mg lipase from 30 l culture supernatant. After testing a large variety of crystallization conditions, the Bacillus lipase gave crystals of reasonable quality in PEG-4000 (38-45%), Na2SO4 and octyl-beta-glucoside at 22 degrees C, pH 9.0. A 2.5 A dataset has been obtained which is complete from 15 to 2.5 A resolution. P.aeruginosa wild-type strain PAC1R was fermented using conditions of maximum lipase production. More than 90% of the lipase was cell bound and could be solubilized by treatment of the cells with Triton X-100. This permitted the purification of approximately 50 mg lipase. So far, no crystals of sufficient quality were obtained. Comparison of the model we built for the Pseudomonas lipase, on the basis of sequences and structures of various hydrolases which were found to possess a common folding pattern (alpha/beta hydrolase fold), with the X-ray structure of the P.glumae lipase revealed that it is possible to correctly build the structure of the core of a protein even in the absence of obvious sequence homology with a protein of known 3-D structure.

Purification and preliminary characterization of the extracellular lipase of Bacillus subtilis 168, an extremely basic pH-tolerant enzyme.

The extracellular lipase of Bacillus subtilis 168 was purified from the growth medium of an overproducing strain by ammonium sulfate precipitation followed by phenyl-Sepharose and hydroxyapatite column chromatography. The purified lipase had a strong tendency to aggregate. It exhibited a molecular mass of 19,000 Da by SDS-PAGE and a pI of 9.9 by chromatofocusing. The enzyme showed maximum stability at pH 12 and maximum activity at pH 10. The lipase was active toward p-nitrophenyl esters and triacylglycerides with a marked preference for esters with C8 acyl groups. Using trioleyl glycerol as substrate, the enzyme preferentially cleaved the 1(3)-position ester bond. No interfacial activation effect was observed with triacetyl glycerol as substrate.

Iron Reduction and Trans Plasma Membrane Electron Transfer in the Yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

The ferri-reductase activity of whole cells of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (washed free from the growth medium) was markedly increased 3 to 6 h after transferring the cells from a complete growth medium (preculture) to an iron-deficient growth medium (culture). This increase was prevented by the presence of iron, copper, excess oxygen, or other oxidative agents in the culture medium. The cells with increased ferri-reductase activity had a higher reduced glutathione content and a higher capacity to expose exofacial sulfhydryl groups. Plasma membranes purified from those cells exhibited a higher reduced nicotinamide adenine phosphate (NADPH)-dependent ferri-reductase specific activity. However, the intracellular levels of NADPH, NADH, and certain organic acids of the tricarboxylic acids cycle were unchanged, and the activity of NADPH-generating enzymes was not increased. Addition of Fe(III)-EDTA to iron-deprived and iron-rich cells in resting suspension resulted in a decrease in intracellular reduced glutathione in the case of iron-deprived cells and in an increase in organic acids and a sudden oxidation of NADH in both types of cells. The depolarizing effect of Fe(3+) was more pronounced in iron-rich cells. The metabolic pathways that may be involved in regulating the trans-plasma membrane electron transfer in yeast are discussed.

Ferric iron reduction and iron assimilation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

We have used the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model organism to study the role of ferric iron reduction in eucaryotic iron uptake. S. cerevisiae is able to utilize ferric chelates as an iron source by reducing the ferric iron to the ferrous form, which is subsequently internalized by the cells. A gene (FRE1) was identified which encodes a protein required for both ferric iron reduction and efficient ferric iron assimilation, thus linking these two activities. The predicted FRE1 protein appears to be a membrane protein and shows homology to the beta-subunit of the human respiratory burst oxidase. These data suggest that FRE1 is a structural component of the ferric reductase. Subcellular fractionation studies showed that the ferric reductase activity of isolated plasma membranes did not reflect the activity of the intact cells, implying that cellular integrity was necessary for function of the major S. cerevisiae ferric reductase. An NADPH-dependent plasma membrane ferric reductase was partially purified from plasma membranes. Preliminary evidence suggests that the cell surface ferric reductase may, in addition to mediating cellular iron uptake, help modulate the intracellular redox potential of the yeast cell.

Excretion of anthranilate and 3-hydroxyanthranilate by Saccharomyces cerevisiae: relationship to iron metabolism.

Resting suspensions of cells of Saccharomyces cerevisiae grown in iron-rich or iron-deficient conditions were studied by following the fluorescence emission changes (lambda em. 400-460 nm, lambda exc. 300-340 nm) occurring in these suspensions upon addition of glucose and ferric iron. The results show that, in addition to NAD(P)H, metabolites of the aromatic amino acid pathway interfere with the fluorescence measurements, and that they could be involved in ferric iron reduction. Wild-type strains of S. cerevisiae are known to excreted anthranilic acid and 3-hydroxyanthranilic acid in response to glucose. The major fluorescing compound excreted by a chorismate-mutase-deficient mutant strain of S. cerevisiae was identified as anthranilic acid. The excretion of anthranilic and 3-hydroxyanthranilic acids was correlated with the ferric-reducing capacity of the extracellular medium. Excretion during growth was much greater by cells cultured in iron-rich medium than by cells grown in iron-deficient medium. The possibility was examined that a link could exist between the biosynthesis of aromatics and the ferri-reductase activity of the cells, via chorismate synthase and its putative diaphorase-associated activity. Two ferri-reductase-deficient mutants excreted much less 3-hydroxyanthranilate than did the parental wild-type strains. However, the ferri-reductase activity of a chorismate-synthase-deficient mutant was comparable to that of the parental strain.

The plasma membrane ferrireductase activity of Saccharomyces cerevisiae is partially controlled by cyclic AMP.

The plasma-membrane-bound ferrireductase activity of ras1 and ras2 mutants of Saccharomyces cerevisiae is not induced in response to iron limitation. This phenotype was suppressed by the bcy1 mutation in ras2 but not in ras1 mutants. The cellular haem content of ras-1-bearing strains decreased dramatically when cells were grown in semi-synthetic medium (low yeast extract content), which could account for their very low ferrireductase activity. The ferrireductase activity of cdc25 and cdc35 mutants dropped when the cells were shifted to a non-permissive temperature. This drop was prevented in the double mutant cdc35 sra5 by adding cyclic AMP to the growth medium. We propose that ferrireductase activity is under the control of a cyclic AMP-dependent protein phosphorylation.

Iron-reductases in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Several NAD(P)H-dependent ferri-reductase activities were detected in sub-cellular extracts of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Some were induced in cells grown under iron-deficient conditions. At least two cytosolic iron-reducing enzymes having different substrate specificities could contribute to iron assimilation in vivo. One enzyme was purified to homogeneity: it is a flavoprotein (FAD) of 40 kDa that uses NADPH as electron donor and Fe(III)-EDTA as artificial electron acceptor. Isolated mitochondria reduced a variety of ferric chelates, probably via an 'external' NADH dehydrogenase, but not the siderophore ferrioxamine B. A plasma membrane-bound ferri-reductase system functioning with NADPH as electron donor and FMN as prosthetic group was purified 100-fold from isolated plasma membranes. This system may be involved in the reductive uptake of iron in vivo.

Reductive and non-reductive mechanisms of iron assimilation by the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Iron reduction and uptake was studied in wild-type and haem-deficient strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Haem-deficient strains lacked inducible ferri-reductase activity and were unable to take up iron from different ferric chelates such as Fe(III)-citrate or rhodoturulic acid. In contrast, ferrioxamine B was taken up actively by the mutants as well as by the wild-type strains. At a low extracellular concentration, uptake was insensitive to ferrozine and competitively inhibited by Ga(III)-desferrioxamine B. Extracellular reductive dissociation of the siderophore occurred at higher extracellular concentrations. Two mechanisms appear to contribute to the uptake of ferrioxamine B by S. cerevisiae: one with high affinity, by which the siderophore is internalized as such and another with lower affinity by which iron is dissociated from the ligand prior to uptake.

Iron storage in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

A ferritin-like molecule was purified from iron-loaded cells of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, but its iron content was very low and was not representative of the cellular iron content. A study of the intracellular distribution of iron has shown that the vacuoles are involved in the storage of iron in the yeast cell. Moreover, it seems that this vacuolar iron can be further utilised by the cells for iron-requiring processes such as mitochondriogenesis.

Iron uptake by the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae: involvement of a reduction step.

Among several parameters affecting the rate and amount of iron uptake by Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the oxidation state of iron appeared to be determinant. Iron presented as Fe(II) was taken up faster than Fe(III) and the kinetic parameters were different. Iron was taken up by the cells from different ferric chelates, at rates that did not depend on their stability constants, and uptake was strongly inhibited by an iron(II)-trapping reagent like ferrozine. Iron was physiologically reduced by a transplasmamembrane redox system, which was induced in iron-deficient conditions. We propose that iron must be reduced to be taken up by the cells in the same way as other divalent cations.