The survival promoting peptide Y-P30 promotes cellular migration.

Y-P30, the 30 amino acid N-terminal peptide of the dermcidin gene, has been found to promote neuronal survival and differentiation. Its early presence in development and import to the fetal brain led to the hypothesis that Y-P30 has an influence on proliferation, differentiation and migration. Neurospheres derived from neural stem cells isolated from E13 mouse cortex and striatal ganglionic eminences were treated with Y-P30, however, the proportion of progenitors, neurons and astrocytes generated in differentiation assays was not altered. A short Y-P30 treatment of undifferentiated striatal and cortical neurospheres failed to alter the proportion of BrdU-positive cells. A longer treatment reduced the percentage of BrdU-positive cells and GABA-immunoreactive neurons only in striatal spheres. The presence of Y-P30 enhanced migration of T24 human bladder carcinoma cells in a wound-healing assay in vitro. Further, Y-P30 enhanced migration of T24 cells, rat primary cortical astrocytes and PC12 cells in chemotactic Boyden chamber assays. Together, these findings suggest that a major function of Y-P30 is to promote migration of neural and non-neural cell types.

The primate-specific peptide Y-P30 regulates morphological maturation of neocortical dendritic spines.

The 30-amino acid peptide Y-P30 corresponds to the N-terminus of the primate-specific, sweat gland-derived dermcidin prepropeptide. Previous work has revealed that Y-P30 enhances the interaction of pleiotrophin and syndecans-2/3, and thus represents a natural ligand to study this signaling pathway. In immature neurons, Y-P30 activates the c-Src and p42/44 ERK kinase pathway, increases the amount of F-actin in axonal growth cones, and promotes neuronal survival, cell migration and axonal elongation. The action of Y-P30 on axonal growth requires syndecan-3 and heparan sulfate side chains. Whether Y-P30 has the potential to influence dendrites and dendritic protrusions has not been explored. The latter is suggested by the observations that syndecan-2 expression increases during postnatal development, that syndecan-2 becomes enriched in dendritic spines, and that overexpression of syndecan-2 in immature neurons results in a premature morphological maturation of dendritic spines. Here, analysing rat cortical pyramidal and non-pyramidal neurons in organotypic cultures, we show that Y-P30 does not alter the development of the dendritic arborization patterns. However, Y-P30 treatment decreases the density of apical, but not basal dendritic protrusions at the expense of the filopodia. Analysis of spine morphology revealed an unchanged mushroom/stubby-to-thin spine ratio and a shortening of the longest decile of dendritic protrusions. Whole-cell recordings from cortical principal neurons in dissociated cultures grown in the presence of Y-P30 demonstrated a decrease in the frequency of glutamatergic mEPSCs. Despite these differences in protrusion morphology and synaptic transmission, the latter likely attributable to presynaptic effects, calcium event rate and amplitude recorded in pyramidal neurons in organotypic cultures were not altered by Y-P30 treatment. Together, our data suggest that Y-P30 has the capacity to decelerate spinogenesis and to promote morphological, but not synaptic, maturation of dendritic protrusions.

Y-P30 promotes axonal growth by stabilizing growth cones.

The 30-amino acid peptide Y-P30, generated from the N-terminus of the human dermcidin precursor protein, has been found to promote neuronal survival, cell migration and neurite outgrowth by enhancing the interaction of pleiotrophin and syndecan-3. We now show that Y-P30 activates Src kinase and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK). Y-P30 promotes axonal growth of mouse embryonic stem cell-derived neurons, embryonic mouse spinal cord motoneurons, perinatal rat retinal neurons, and rat cortical neurons. Y-P30-mediated axon growth was dependent on heparan sulfate chains. Y-P30 decreased the proportion of collapsing/degenerating growth cones of cortical axons in an Src and ERK-dependent manner. Y-P30 increased for 90 min in axonal growth cones the level of Tyr418-phosphorylated Src kinase and the amount of F-actin, and transiently the level of Tyr-phosphorylated ERK. Levels of total Src kinase, actin, GAP-43, cortactin and the glutamate receptor subunit GluN2B were not altered. When exposed to semaphorin-3a, Y-P30 protected a significant fraction of growth cones of cortical neurons from collapse. These results suggest that Y-P30 promotes axonal growth via Src- and ERK-dependent mechanisms which stabilize growth cones and confer resistance to collapsing factors.

Analysis of Y-P30/Dermcidin expression and properties of the Y-P30 peptide.

BACKGROUND: The survival promoting peptide Y-P30 has a variety of neuritogenic and neuroprotective effects in vitro and in vivo. In previous work we reported the expression of Y-P30/dermcidin in maternal peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and the transport of the protein to the fetal brain. In this study we analyzed hormonal regulation of Y-P30 in human immune cells and expression of Y-P30 in the placenta. We further studied the stability and secretion of the Y-P30 peptide. RESULTS: We found indications that Y-P30 might be produced in human placenta. The Y-P30 mRNA was rarely found in isolated human PBMCs and alpha-feto-protein, human chorionic gonadotropin as well as estradiol combined with progesterone could not induce Y-P30 expression. Y-P30 was found to be extraordinarily stable; therefore, contamination with the peptide and the Y-P30/Dermcidin precursor mRNA is a serious concern in experiments looking at the expression of Y-P30/Dermcidin. In cultured cell lines and primary neurons we found that Y-P30 could be released, but neuronal uptake of Y-P30 was not observed. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that a source of Y-P30 apart from eccrine glands might be the placenta. The peptide can be secreted together with the signaling peptide and it might reach the fetal brain where it can exert its neuritogenic functions by binding to neuronal membranes.