Cytochrome c is transformed from anti- to pro-oxidant when interacting with truncated oncoprotein prothymosin alpha.

Many apoptotic signals are known to induce release to cytosol of cytochrome c, a small mitochondrial protein with positively charged amino acid residues dominating over negatively charged ones. On the other hand, in this group, it was shown that prothymosin alpha (PT), a small nuclear protein where 53 of 109 amino acid residues are negatively charged, is truncated to form a protein of 99 amino acid residues which accumulates in cytosol during apoptosis [FEBS Lett. 467 (2000) 150]. It was suggested that positively charged cytochrome c and negatively charged truncated prothymosin alpha (tPT), when meeting in cytosol, can interact with each other. In this paper, such an interaction is shown. (1) Formation of cytochrome cz.ccirf;tPT complex is demonstrated by a blot-overlay assay. (2) Analytical centrifugation of solution containing cytochrome c and tPT reveals formation of complexes of molecular masses higher than those of these proteins. The masses increase when the cytochrome c/tPT ratio increases. High concentration of KCl prevents the complex formation. (3) In the complexes formed, cytochrome c becomes autoxidizable; its reduction by superoxide or ascorbate as well as its operation as electron carrier between the outer and inner mitochondrial membranes appear to be inhibited. (4) tPT inhibits cytochrome c oxidation by H(2)O(2), catalyzed by peroxidase. Thus, tPT abolishes all antioxidant functions of cytochrome c which, in the presence of tPT, becomes in fact a pro-oxidant. A possible role of tPT in the development of reactive oxygen species- and cytochrome c-mediated apoptosis is discussed.

A cytochrome c mutant with high electron transfer and antioxidant activities but devoid of apoptogenic effect.

A cytochrome c mutant lacking apoptogenic function but competent in electron transfer and antioxidant activities has been constructed. To this end, mutant species of horse and yeast cytochromes c with substitutions in the N-terminal alpha-helix or position 72 were obtained. It was found that yeast cytochrome c was much less effective than the horse protein in activating respiration of rat liver mitoplasts deficient in endogenous cytochrome c as well as in inhibition of H(2)O(2) production by the initial segment of the respiratory chain of intact rat heart mitochondria. The major role in the difference between the horse and yeast proteins was shown to be played by the amino acid residue in position 4 (glutamate in horse, and lysine in yeast; horse protein numbering). A mutant of the yeast cytochrome c containing K4E and some other "horse" modifications in the N-terminal alpha-helix, proved to be (i) much more active in electron transfer and antioxidant activity than the wild-type yeast cytochrome c and (ii), like the yeast cytochrome c, inactive in caspase stimulation, even if added in 400-fold excess compared with the horse protein. Thus this mutant seems to be a good candidate for knock-in studies of the role of cytochrome c-mediated apoptosis, in contrast with the horse K72R, K72G, K72L and K72A mutant cytochromes that at low concentrations were less active in apoptosis than the wild-type, but were quite active when the concentrations were increased by a factor of 2-12.