Novel high-yield potato protease inhibitor panels block a wide array of proteases involved in viral infection and crucial tissue damage.

Viruses critically rely on various proteases to ensure host cell entry and replication. In response to viral infection, the host will induce acute tissue inflammation pulled by granulocytes. Upon hyperactivation, neutrophil granulocytes may cause undue tissue damage through proteolytic degradation of the extracellular matrix. Here, we assess the potential of protease inhibitors (PI) derived from potatoes in inhibiting viral infection and reducing tissue damage. The original full spectrum of potato PI was developed into five fractions by means of chromatography and hydrolysis. Individual fractions showed varying inhibitory efficacy towards a panel of proteases including trypsin, chymotrypsin, ACE2, elastase, and cathepsins B and L. The fractions did not interfere with SARS-CoV-2 infection of Vero E6 cells in vitro. Importantly, two of the fractions fully inhibited elastin-degrading activity of complete primary human neutrophil degranulate. These data warrant further development of potato PI fractions for biomedical purposes, including tissue damage crucial to SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis. KEY MESSAGES: Protease inhibitor fractions from potato differentially inhibit a series of human proteases involved in viral replication and in tissue damage by overshoot inflammation. Protease inhibition of cell surface receptors such as ACE2 does not prevent virus infection of Vero cells in vitro. Protease inhibitors derived from potato can fully inhibit elastin-degrading primary human neutrophil proteases. Protease inhibitor fractions can be produced at high scale (hundreds of thousands of kilograms, i.e., tons) allowing economically feasible application in lower and higher income countries.

Potato Patatin Generates Short-Chain Fatty Acids from Milk Fat that Contribute to Flavour Development in Cheese Ripening.

The potato lipase, patatin, has long been thought of as essentially inactive towards triacylglycerols. Recently, technology has been developed to isolate potato proteins in native form as food ingredients at industrial scale. Characterisation of native patatin obtained in this way revealed that this enzyme activity towards triacylglycerols has been underestimated. This enables the application of patatin in cheese ripening, which is described in this study. When patatin is added to milk during cheese making, the lipase preferentially releases short-chain fatty acids that contribute to cheese flavour in a dose-dependent manner. Fortuitously, the lipase activity is found mainly in the curd. The release of the short-chain fatty acids matches the activity profile of patatin towards homotriacylglycerols of defined chain length. Residual patatin in the whey fraction can be inactivated effectively by heat treatment that follows Arrhenius kinetics. The results are discussed in terms of cheese making, patatin substrate preference and implications for the use of patatin more generally in food emulsions.

Digestion kinetics of potato protein isolates in vitro and in vivo.

Recently, an industrial process was developed to isolate native protein fractions from potato: a high (HMW) and a low (LMW) molecular weight fraction. Digestion kinetics of HMW and LMW was studied in vitro and in vivo and compared with reference proteins. Under simulated conditions, highest digestion was found for whey protein, followed by soy, pea, HMW, casein and LMW. Ingestion of 20 g of proteins by eight healthy subjects (following a randomized, double-blind, cross-over design) induced a slow and moderate increase with HMW and LMW, while a peaked and high increase with whey protein, in postprandial plasma amino acid levels. Casein gave a similar profile as HMW, with higher levels. Contrary to whey and casein, HMW and LMW did not result in any changes in plasma insulin or glucose levels. This study provides insights in digestion of native potato protein isolates to assist their use as protein sources in food applications.

Phosphatidic acid plays a special role in stabilizing and folding of the tetrameric potassium channel KcsA.

In this study, we investigated how the presence of anionic lipids influenced the stability and folding properties of the potassium channel KcsA. By using a combination of gel electrophoresis, tryptophan fluorescence and acrylamide quenching experiments, we found that the presence of the anionic lipid phosphatidylglycerol (PG) in a phosphatidylcholine (PC) bilayer slightly stabilized the tetramer and protected it from trifluoroethanol-induced dissociation. Surprisingly, the presence of phosphatidic acid (PA) had a much larger effect on the stability of KcsA and this lipid, in addition, significantly influenced the folding properties of the protein. The data indicate that PA creates some specificity over PG, and that it most likely stabilizes the tetramer via both electrostatic and hydrogen bond interactions.

2,2,2-Trifluoroethanol changes the transition kinetics and subunit interactions in the small bacterial mechanosensitive channel MscS.

2,2,2-Trifluoroethanol (TFE), a low-dielectric solvent, has recently been used as a promising tool to probe the strength of intersubunit interactions in membrane proteins. An analysis of inner membrane proteins of Escherichia coli has identified several SDS-resistant protein complexes that separate into subunits upon exposure to TFE. One of these was the homo-heptameric stretch-activated mechanosensitive channel of small conductance (MscS), a ubiquitous component of the bacterial turgor-regulation system. Here we show that a substantial fraction of MscS retains its oligomeric state in cold lithium-dodecyl-sulfate gel electrophoresis. Exposure of MscS complexes to 10-15 vol % TFE in native membranes or nonionic detergent micelles before lithium-dodecyl-sulfate electrophoresis results in a complete dissociation into monomers, suggesting that at these concentrations TFE by itself disrupts or critically compromises intersubunit interactions. Patch-clamp analysis of giant E. coli spheroplasts expressing MscS shows that exposure to TFE in lower concentrations (0.5-5.0 vol %) causes leftward shifts of the dose-response curves when applied extracellularly, and rightward shifts when added from the cytoplasmic side. In the latter case, TFE increases the rate of tension-dependent inactivation and lengthens the process of recovery to the resting state. MscS responses to pressure ramps of different speeds indicate that in the presence of TFE most channels reside in the resting state and only at tensions near the activation threshold does TFE dramatically speed up inactivation. The effect of TFE is reversible as normal channel activity returns 15-30 min after a TFE washout. We interpret the observed midpoint shifts in terms of asymmetric partitioning of TFE into the membrane and distortion of the bilayer lateral pressure profile. We also relate the increased rate of inactivation and subunit separation with the capacity of TFE to perturb buried interhelical contacts in proteins and discuss these effects in the framework of the proposed gating mechanism of MscS.

Covalently dimerized SecA is functional in protein translocation.

The ATPase SecA provides the driving force for the transport of secretory proteins across the cytoplasmic membrane of Escherichia coli. SecA exists as a dimer in solution, but the exact oligomeric state of SecA during membrane binding and preprotein translocation is a topic of debate. To study the requirements of oligomeric changes in SecA during protein translocation, a non-dissociable SecA dimer was formed by oxidation of the carboxyl-terminal cysteines. The cross-linked SecA dimer interacts with the SecYEG complex with a similar stoichiometry as non-cross-linked SecA. Cross-linking reversibly disrupts the SecB binding site on SecA. However, in the absence of SecB, the activity of the disulfide-bonded SecA dimer is indistinguishable from wild-type SecA. Moreover, SecYEG binding stabilizes a cold sodium dodecylsulfate-resistant dimeric state of SecA. The results demonstrate that dissociation of the SecA dimer is not an essential feature of the protein translocation reaction.

Detection and identification of stable oligomeric protein complexes in Escherichi coli inner membranes: a proteomics approach.

In this study we present a new technology to detect stable oligomeric protein complexes in membranes. The technology is based on the ability of small membrane-active alcohols to dissociate the highly stable homotetrameric potassium channel KcsA. It is shown via a proteomics approach, using diagonal electrophoresis and nano-flow liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry, that a large number of both integral and peripheral Escherichia coli inner membrane proteins are part of stable oligomeric complexes that can be dissociated by small alcohols. This study gives insight into the composition and stability of these complexes.

Photo-crosslinking analysis of preferential interactions between a transmembrane peptide and matching lipids.

In this study, a novel method is presented by which the molecular environment of a transmembrane peptide can be investigated directly. This was achieved by incorporating a photoactivatable crosslinking probe in the hydrophobic segment of a model transmembrane peptide. When this peptide was incorporated into lipid bilayers and irradiated with UV light, a covalent bond was formed between the crosslinking probe and a lipid. This crosslinking reaction could be visualized by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and the resulting product could be characterized by mass spectrometry. By use of phospholipases, it was demonstrated that the peptide crosslinks to both acyl chains of the lipids. The peptide showed a clear preference to partition into fluid lipids and was excluded from lipids in the gel phase. However, when the peptide was incorporated into bilayers containing two lipid species with different acyl chain lengths, molecular sorting of the lipids around the peptide based on hydrophobic matching was not observed. It is proposed that the size of the transmembrane part plays an important role in the dynamic interactions of membrane proteins with the surrounding lipids and hence in determining whether molecular sorting can occur.

Distinct conformational stability and functional activity of four highly homologous endonuclease colicins.

The family of conserved colicin DNases E2, E7, E8, and E9 are microbial toxins that kill bacteria through random degradation of the chromosomal DNA. In the present work, we compare side by side the conformational stabilities of these four highly homologous colicin DNases. Our results indicate that the apo-forms of these colicins are at room temperature and neutral pH in a dynamic conformational equilibrium between at least two quite distinct conformers. We show that the thermal stabilities of the apo-proteins differ by up to 20 degrees C. The observed differences correlate with the observed conformational behavior, that is, the tendency of the protein to form either an open, less stable or closed, more stable conformation in solution, as deduced by both tryptophan accessibility studies and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry. Given these surprising structural differences, we next probed the catalytic activity of the four DNases and also observed a significant variation in relative activities. However, no unequivocal link between the activity of the protein and its thermal and structural stability could easily be made. The observed differences in conformational and functional properties of the four colicin DNases are surprising given that they are a closely related (> or =65% identity) family of enzymes containing a highly conserved (betabetaalpha-Me) active site motif. The different behavior of the apo-enzymes must therefore most likely depend on more subtle changes in amino acid sequences, most likely in the exosite region (residues 72-98) that is required for specific high-affinity binding of the cognate immunity protein.

Membrane interaction of the glycosyltransferase MurG: a special role for cardiolipin.

MurG is a peripheral membrane protein that is one of the key enzymes in peptidoglycan biosynthesis. The crystal structure of Escherichia coli MurG (S. Ha, D. Walker, Y. Shi, and S. Walker, Protein Sci. 9:1045-1052, 2000) contains a hydrophobic patch surrounded by basic residues that may represent a membrane association site. To allow investigation of the membrane interaction of MurG on a molecular level, we expressed and purified MurG from E. coli in the absence of detergent. Surprisingly, we found that lipid vesicles copurify with MurG. Freeze fracture electron microscopy of whole cells and lysates suggested that these vesicles are derived from vesicular intracellular membranes that are formed during overexpression. This is the first study which shows that overexpression of a peripheral membrane protein results in formation of additional membranes within the cell. The cardiolipin content of cells overexpressing MurG was increased from 1 +/- 1 to 7 +/- 1 mol% compared to nonoverexpressing cells. The lipids that copurify with MurG were even further enriched in cardiolipin (13 +/- 4 mol%). MurG activity measurements of lipid I, its natural substrate, incorporated in pure lipid vesicles showed that the MurG activity is higher for vesicles containing cardiolipin than for vesicles with phosphatidylglycerol. These findings support the suggestion that MurG interacts with phospholipids of the bacterial membrane. In addition, the results show a special role for cardiolipin in the MurG-membrane interaction.