Mercury-induced aggregation of human lens γ-crystallins reveals a potential role in cataract disease.

Cataract disease results from non-amyloid aggregation of eye lens proteins and is the leading cause of blindness in the world. A variety of studies have implicated both essential and xenobiotic metals as potential etiological agents in cataract disease. Essential metal ions, such as copper and zinc, are known to induce the aggregation in vitro of human γD crystallin, one of the more abundant γ-crystallins in the core of the lens. In this study, we expand the investigation of metal-crystallin interactions to heavy metal ions, such as divalent lead, cadmium and mercury. The impact of these metal ions in the non-amyloid aggregation, protein folding and thermal stability of three homologous human lens γ-crystallins has been evaluated using turbidity assays, electron microscopy, electronic absorption and circular dichroism spectroscopies. Our results show that Hg(II) ions can induce the non-amyloid aggregation of human γC and γS crystallins, but not γD crystallin. The mechanism of Hg-induced aggregation involves direct metal-protein interactions, loss of thermal stability, partial unfolding of the N-terminal domain of these proteins, and formation of disulfide-bridged dimers. Putative Hg(II) binding sites in γ-crystallins involved in metal-induced aggregation are discussed. This study reveals that mercury ions can induce the aggregation of human lens proteins, uncovering a potential role of this heavy metal ion in the bioinorganic chemistry of cataract disease.

Inhibition of copper-mediated aggregation of human γD-crystallin by Schiff bases.

Protein aggregation, due to the imbalance in the concentration of Cu2+ and Zn2+ ions is found to be allied with various physiological disorders. Copper is known to promote the oxidative damage of ß/γ-crystallins in aged eye lens and causes their aggregation leading to cataract. Therefore, synthesis of a small-molecule 'chelator' for Cu2+ with complementary antioxidant effect will find potential applications against aggregation of ß/γ-crystallins. In this paper, we have reported the synthesis of different Schiff bases and studied their Cu2+ complexation ability (using UV-Vis, FT-IR and ESI-MS) and antioxidant activity. Further based on their copper complexation efficiency, Schiff bases were used to inhibit Cu2+-mediated aggregation of recombinant human γD-crystallin (HGD) and ß/γ-crystallins (isolated from cataractous human eye lens). Among these synthesized molecules, compound 8 at a concentration of 100 µM had shown ~95% inhibition of copper (100 µM)-induced aggregation. Compound 8 also showed a positive cooperative effect at a concentration of 5-15 µM on the inhibitory activity of human αA-crystallin (HAA) during Cu2+-induced aggregation of HGD. It eventually inhibited the aggregation process by additional ~20%. However, ~50% inhibition of copper-mediated aggregation of ß/γ-crystallins (isolated from cataractous human eye lens) was recorded by compound 8 (100 µM). Although the reductive aminated products of the imines showed better antioxidant activity due to their lower copper complexing ability, they were found to be non-effective against Cu2+-mediated aggregation of HGD.