Reduced purine biosynthesis in humans after their divergence from Neandertals.

We analyze the metabolomes of humans, chimpanzees, and macaques in muscle, kidney and three different regions of the brain. Although several compounds in amino acid metabolism occur at either higher or lower concentrations in humans than in the other primates, metabolites downstream of adenylosuccinate lyase, which catalyzes two reactions in purine synthesis, occur at lower concentrations in humans. This enzyme carries an amino acid substitution that is present in all humans today but absent in Neandertals. By introducing the modern human substitution into the genomes of mice, as well as the ancestral, Neandertal-like substitution into the genomes of human cells, we show that this amino acid substitution contributes to much or all of the reduction of de novo synthesis of purines in humans.

Molecular comparison of Neanderthal and Modern Human adenylosuccinate lyase.

The availability of genomic data from extinct homini such as Neanderthals has caused a revolution in palaeontology allowing the identification of modern human-specific protein substitutions. Currently, little is known as to how these substitutions alter the proteins on a molecular level. Here, we investigate adenylosuccinate lyase, a conserved enzyme involved in purine metabolism for which several substitutions in the modern human protein (hADSL) have been described to affect intelligence and behaviour. During evolution, modern humans acquired a specific substitution (Ala429Val) in ADSL distinguishing it from the ancestral variant present in Neanderthals (nADSL). We show here that despite this conservative substitution being solvent exposed and located distant from the active site, there is a difference in thermal stability, but not enzymology or ligand binding between nADSL and hADSL. Substitutions near residue 429 which do not profoundly affect enzymology were previously reported to cause neurological symptoms in humans. This study also reveals that ADSL undergoes conformational changes during catalysis which, together with the crystal structure of a hitherto undetermined product bound conformation, explains the molecular origin of disease for several modern human ADSL mutants.

Deep and precise quantification of the mouse synaptosomal proteome reveals substantial remodeling during postnatal maturation.

During postnatal murine maturation, behavioral patterns emerge and become shaped by experience-dependent adaptations. During the same period, the morphology of dendritic spines, the morphological correlates of excitatory synapses, is known to change, and there is evidence of concurrent alterations of the synaptosomal protein machinery. To obtain comprehensive and quantitative insights in the developmental regulation of the proteome of synapses, we prepared cortical synaptosomal fractions from a total of 16 individual juvenile and adult mouse brains (age 3 or 8 weeks, respectively). We then applied peptide-based iTRAQ labeling (four pools of 4 animals) and high-resolution two-dimensional peptide fractionation (99 SCX fractions and 3 h reversed-phase gradients) using a hybrid CID-HCD acquisition method on a Velos Orbitrap mass spectrometer to identify a comprehensive set of synaptic proteins and to quantify changes in protein expression. We obtained a data set tracking expression levels of 3500 proteins mapping to 3427 NCBI GeneIDs during development with complete quantification data available for 3422 GeneIDs, which, to the best of our knowledge, constitutes the deepest coverage of the synaptosome proteome to date. The inclusion of biological replicates in a single mass spectrometry analysis demonstrated both high reproducibility of our synaptosome preparation method as well as high precision of our quantitative data (correlation coefficient R = 0.87 for the biological replicates). To evaluate the validity of our data, the developmental regulation of eight proteins identified in our analysis was confirmed independently using western blotting. A gene ontology analysis confirmed the synaptosomal nature of a large fraction of identified proteins. Of note, the set of the most strongly regulated proteins revealed candidates involved in neurological processes in health and disease states. This highlights the fact that developmentally regulated proteins can play additional roles in neurological disease processes. All data have been deposited to the ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD000552.

Dynamics of dendritic spines in the mouse auditory cortex during memory formation and memory recall.

Long-lasting changes in synaptic connections induced by relevant experiences are believed to represent the physical correlate of memories. Here, we combined chronic in vivo two-photon imaging of dendritic spines with auditory-cued classical conditioning to test if the formation of a fear memory is associated with structural changes of synapses in the mouse auditory cortex. We find that paired conditioning and unpaired conditioning induce a transient increase in spine formation or spine elimination, respectively. A fraction of spines formed during paired conditioning persists and leaves a long-lasting trace in the network. Memory recall triggered by the reexposure of mice to the sound cue did not lead to changes in spine dynamics. Our findings provide a synaptic mechanism for plasticity in sound responses of auditory cortex neurons induced by auditory-cued fear conditioning; they also show that retrieval of an auditory fear memory does not lead to a recapitulation of structural plasticity in the auditory cortex as observed during initial memory consolidation.

Co-evolution-driven switch of J-protein specificity towards an Hsp70 partner.

Molecular mechanisms by which protein-protein interactions are preserved or lost after gene duplication are not understood. Taking advantage of the well-studied yeast mtHsp70:J-protein molecular chaperone system, we considered whether changes in partner proteins accompanied specialization of gene duplicates. Here, we report that existence of the Hsp70 Ssq1, which arose by duplication of the gene encoding multifunction mtHsp70 and specializes in iron-sulphur cluster biogenesis, correlates with functional and structural changes in the J domain of its J-protein partner Jac1. All species encoding this shorter alternative version of the J domain share a common ancestry, suggesting that all short JAC1 proteins arose from a single deletion event. Construction of a variant that extended the length of the J domain of a 'short' Jac1 enhanced its ability to partner with multifunctional Hsp70. Our data provide a causal link between changes in the J protein partner and specialization of duplicate Hsp70.