Toxicokinetics of plasmatic VX in a swine model: comparison of a simple enzymatic titration method with a mass spectrometry method.

Recent events have shown that organophosphorus nerve agents (OPNAs) are a serious threat. Cholinesterase inhibition by OPNAs results in acetylcholine accumulation, a cholinergic crisis leading to death if untreated. Efficacy assessment of new medical countermeasures against OPNAs relies on translational animal models. We developed a swine model of percutaneous VX intoxication and a simple plate reader-based enzymatic method to quantify plasmatic VX over time. Juvenile pigs anesthetized with sevoflurane were poisoned with a single supralethal (n = 5; 1200 µg/kg) or sublethal (n = 6; 320 µg/kg) percutaneous dose of VX. These intoxicated animals were compared to 7 control animals. Repeated blood sampling was performed up to 6 h post-intoxication. Blood cholinesterase activities were measured using the Ellman assay. Nanomolar plasma concentrations of VX were measured by exogenous butyrylcholinesterase added to an aliquot of plasma. As expected, we observed a steady increase in plasma concentration of VX over time concomitant to a decrease in blood cholinesterase activities for all intoxicated pigs. Despite the simplicity of the enzymatic method, the results obtained are in good agreement with those of the liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry method. This method is also applicable to other OPNAs such as novichoks with minor adaptations.

Pressure-induced molten globule state of human acetylcholinesterase: structural and dynamical changes monitored by neutron scattering.

We used small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) to study the effects of high hydrostatic pressure on the structure of human acetylcholinesterase (hAChE). At atmospheric pressure, our SANS results obtained on D11 at ILL (Grenoble, France) give a radius of gyration close to that calculated for a mixture of monomers, dimers and tetramers of the enzyme, suggesting a good agreement between hAChE crystal structure and its conformation in solution. Applying high pressure to the sample we found a global compression of about 11% of the enzyme up to a pressure of 900 bar and then again an extension up to 2.1 kbar indicating unfolding of the tertiary structure due to a molten globule (MG) state. On the other hand, we studied the influence of pressure up to 6 kbar on the dynamics of this enzyme, on the backscattering spectrometer IN13 at ILL. For the first time, we used elastic incoherent neutron scattering (EINS) to probe the differences between hAChE in its folded state (N), its high-pressure induced MG state and its unfolded state (U). Especially around the MG state at 1750 bar we found a significant increase in the dynamics, indicating a partial unfolding. A four-step-model is suggested to describe the changes in the protein.

Baseline physiological data from anesthetized pigs in a VX intoxication model.

Over the past fifty years, swine models have been used for organophosphorus intoxication studies. Among these studies and others on the swine model in general, some physiological data, especially cholinesterase activity highly impacted by organophosphorus compounds like nerve agent VX, still need to be completed. To support and compare our model to others, we have published the experimental protocol, the physiological values of 31 juvenile anesthetized pigs, and the 6 h-follow-up of six supplementary anesthetized control animals and 7 VX-intoxicated pigs. We reported hemodynamics and respiratory parameters, blood levels in several biochemical parameters, blood gas, and complete blood count and compared them to the literature. We also focused on tissue and blood cholinesterase activities and detailed them for acetylcholinesterase and butyrylcholinesterase. After establishing a broad physiological data set consistent with the literature, we reported several cardio-respiratory parameters that seem more affected by an organophosphate intoxication, like heart rate, arterial blood pressure, cardiac output, and respiratory rate. Within the blood, oxygen saturation (SpO2), lactatemia, base excess, and glycemia can also be measured and associated with the other parameters to evaluate the life-threatening status. This swine model is currently used to develop and evaluate medical countermeasures against organophosphate nerve agent intoxications.

[Enzyme optimization, mutagenesis and directed evolution]. / Optimiser les enzymes, mutagenèse et évolution dirigées.

Among the different areas of biotechnology, enzyme engineering represents a growing field where major progress has been recently made. Indeed, chemical, pharmaceutical or food industries have increased needs for enzymes. This increase requires enzyme optimization in order to achieve, together or separately, greater operational stability, better specificity, increased solubility or preferential enantioselectivity. Directed and random mutagenesis, the classical methods of enzymatic engineering, have proved to be efficient in some cases, but are quite tricky. Directed evolution is a hybrid method recently developed in order to reproduce the random mechanisms of evolution in vitro. This method has now been used to optimise an increasing number of enzymes. In our research group, a directed evolution project has been initiated on a bacterial phosphotriesterase, a promising enzyme, capable of efficiently detoxifying organophosphorus nerve agents.

Correlation of the dynamics of native human acetylcholinesterase and its inhibited huperzine A counterpart from sub-picoseconds to nanoseconds.

It is a long debated question whether catalytic activities of enzymes, which lie on the millisecond timescale, are possibly already reflected in variations in atomic thermal fluctuations on the pico- to nanosecond timescale. To shed light on this puzzle, the enzyme human acetylcholinesterase in its wild-type form and complexed with the inhibitor huperzine A were investigated by various neutron scattering techniques and molecular dynamics simulations. Previous results on elastic neutron scattering at various timescales and simulations suggest that dynamical processes are not affected on average by the presence of the ligand within the considered time ranges between 10 ps and 1 ns. In the work presented here, the focus was laid on quasi-elastic (QENS) and inelastic neutron scattering (INS). These techniques give access to different kinds of individual diffusive motions and to the density of states of collective motions at the sub-picoseconds timescale. Hence, they permit going beyond the first approach of looking at mean square displacements. For both samples, the autocorrelation function was well described by a stretched-exponential function indicating a linkage between the timescales of fast and slow functional relaxation dynamics. The findings of the QENS and INS investigation are discussed in relation to the results of our earlier elastic incoherent neutron scattering and molecular dynamics simulations.

Trp82 and Tyr332 are involved in two quaternary ammonium binding domains of human butyrylcholinesterase as revealed by photoaffinity labeling with [3H]DDF.

Purified butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE) was photolabeled by [3H]-p-N, N-dimethylamino benzene diazonium ([3H]DDF) to identify the quaternary ammonium binding sites on this protein [Ehret-Sabatier, L. , Schalk, I., Goeldner, M., and Hirth, C. (1992) Eur. J. Biochem. 203, 475-481]. The covalent photoincorporation occurs with a stoichiometry of one mole of probe per mole of inactivated site and could be fully prevented by several cholinergic inhibitors such as tacrine or tetramethylammonium. After complete deglycosylation of the enzyme using N-glycosidase F, the alkylated protein was trypsinolyzed and the digests were analyzed by HPLC coupled to ES-MS. A direct comparison of tryptic fragments from labeled and unlabeled BuChE allowed us to identify the tryptic peptide Tyr61-Lys103 as carrying the probe. Purification of the labeled peptides by anion-exchange chromatography gave a major radioactive peak which was further fractionated by reversed-phase HPLC leading to three, well-resolved, radioactive peaks. Microsequencing revealed that two of these peaks contained an overlapping sequence starting at Tyr61, while the third peak contained a sequence extending from Thr315. Radioactive signals could be unambiguously attributed to positions corresponding to residues Trp82 and Tyr332. This labeling study establishes the existence of two different binding domains for quaternary ammonium in BuChE and exemplifies additional cation/pi interactions in cholinergic proteins. This work strongly supports the existence of a peripheral anionic site in BuChE, implying residue Tyr332 as a key element.