4-Phenylbutyrate suppresses the unfolded protein response without restoring protein folding in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Accumulation of unfolded secretory proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), namely ER stress, is hazardous to eukaryotic cells and promotes the unfolded protein response (UPR). Ire1 is an ER-located transmembrane protein that senses ER stress and triggers the UPR. According to previous in vitro experiments, 4-phenylbutyrate (4-PBA) works as a chemical molecular chaperone. Since 4-PBA attenuates the UPR in mammalian tissue cultures, this chemical may have clinical potential for restoring ER-stressing conditions. In this study, we investigated 4-PBA's mode of action using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model organism. Although 4-PBA blocked a dithiothreitol (DTT)-induced UPR, it did not appear to restore impairment of ER protein folding that was caused by DTT. Moreover, even under non-stress conditions, 4-PBA attenuated UPR that was induced by an Ire1 mutant that exhibits a substantial activity without sensing ER accumulation of unfolded proteins. We also found that 4-PBA drastically promotes the degradation of Ire1. These observations indicate that at least in the case of yeast cells, 4-PBA suppresses the UPR not through restoration of the ER function to correctly fold proteins. Instead, the accelerated degradation of Ire1 possibly explains the reason why the UPR is attenuated by 4-PBA.

Procarcinogens - Determination and Evaluation by Yeast-Based Biosensor Transformed with Plasmids Incorporating RAD54 Reporter Construct and Cytochrome P450 Genes.

In Vietnam, a great number of toxic substances, including carcinogens and procarcinogens, from industrial and agricultural activities, food production, and healthcare services are daily released into the environment. In the present study, we report the development of novel yeast-based biosensor systems to determine both genotoxic carcinogens and procarcinogens by cotransformation with two plasmids. One plasmid is carrying human CPR and CYP (CYP3A4, CYP2B6, or CYP2D6) genes, while the other contains the RAD54-GFP reporter construct. The three resulting coexpression systems bearing both CPR-CYP and RAD54-GFP expression cassettes were designated as CYP3A4/CYP2B6/CYP2D6 + RAD54 systems, respectively and used to detect and evaluate the genotoxic potential of carcinogens and procarcinogens by selective activation and induction of both CPR-CYP and RAD54-GFP expression cassettes in response to DNA damage. Procarcinogens were shown to be predominantly, moderately or not bioactivated by one of the CYP enzymes and thus selectively detected by the specific coexpression system. Aflatoxin B1 and benzo(a)pyrene were predominantly detected by the CYP3A4 + RAD54 system, while N-nitrosodimethylamine only moderately activated the CYP2B6 + RAD54 reporter system and none of them was identified by the CYP2D6 + RAD54 system. In contrast, the genotoxic carcinogen, methyl methanesulfonate, was detected by all systems. Our yeast-reporter system can be performed in 384-well microplates to provide efficient genotoxicity testing to identify various carcinogenic compounds and reduce chemical consumption to about 53% as compared with existing 96-well genotoxicity bioassays. In association with a liquid handling robot, this platform enables rapid, cost-effective, and high-throughput screening of numerous analytes in a fully automated and continuous manner without the need for user interaction.