Parent-of-origin tumourigenesis is mediated by an essential imprinted modifier in SDHD-linked paragangliomas: SLC22A18 and CDKN1C are candidate tumour modifiers.

Mutations in SDHD and SDHAF2 (both located on chromosome 11) give rise to hereditary paraganglioma almost exclusively after paternal transmission of the mutation, and tumours often show loss of the entire maternal copy of chromosome 11. The 'Hensen' model postulates that a tumour modifier gene located on chromosome 11p15, a region known to harbour a cluster of imprinted genes, is essential to tumour formation. We observed decreased protein expression of the 11p15 candidate genes CDKN1C, SLC22A18 and ZNF215 evaluated in 60 SDHD-mutated tumours compared to normal carotid body tissue and non-SDH mutant tumours.We then created stable knockdown in vitro models, reasoning that the simultaneous knockdown of SDHD and a maternally expressed 11p15 modifier gene would enhance paraganglioma-related cellular characteristics compared to SDHD knockdown alone. Knockdown of SDHD in SNB19 and SHSY5Y cells resulted in the accumulation of succinate, the stabilization of HIF1 protein and a reduction in cell proliferation.Compared to single knockdown of SDHD, knockdown of SDHD together with SLC22A18 or with CDKN1C led to small but significant increases in cell proliferation and resistance to apoptosis, and to a gene expression profile closely related to the known transcriptional profile of SDH-deficient tumours. Of the 60 SDHD tumours investigated, four tumours showing retention of chromosome 11 showed SLC22A18 and CDKN1C expression levels comparable to levels in tumours showing loss of chromosome 11, suggesting loss of protein expression despite chromosomal retention.Our data strongly suggest that SLC22A18 and/or CDKN1C are tumour modifier genes involved in the tumourigenesis of SDHD-linked paraganglioma.

Novel insights in transport mechanisms and kinetics of phenylacetic acid and penicillin-G in Penicillium chrysogenum.

Although penicillin-G (PenG) production by the fungus Penicillium chrysogenum is a well-studied process, little is known about the mechanisms of transport of the precursor phenylacetic acid (PAA) and the product PenG over the cell membrane. To obtain more insight in the nature of these mechanisms, in vivo stimulus response experiments were performed with PAA and PenG in chemostat cultures of P. chrysogenum at time scales of seconds to minutes. The results indicated that PAA is able to enter the cell by passive diffusion of the undissociated acid at a high rate, but is at the same time actively excreted, possibly by an ATP-binding cassette transporter. This results in a futile cycle, dissipating a significant amount of metabolic energy, which was confirmed by increased rates of substrate and oxygen consumption, and carbon dioxide production. To estimate the kinetic properties of passive import and active export of PAA over the cell membrane, a dynamic mathematical model was constructed. With this model, a good description of the dynamic data could be obtained. Also, PenG was found to be rapidly taken up by the cells upon extracellular addition, indicating that PenG transport is reversible. The measured concentration gradient of PenG over the cell membrane corresponded well with facilitated transport. Also, for PenG transport, a dynamic model was constructed and validated with experimental data. The outcome of the model simulations was in agreement with the presence of a facilitated transport system for PenG.

Intracellular metabolite determination in the presence of extracellular abundance: Application to the penicillin biosynthesis pathway in Penicillium chrysogenum.

Important steps in metabolic pathways are formed by the transport of substrates and products over the cell membrane. The study of in vivo transport kinetics requires accurate quantification of intra- and extracellular levels of the transported compounds. Especially in case of extracellular abundance, the proper determination of intracellular metabolite levels poses challenges. Efficient removal of extracellular substrates and products is therefore important not to overestimate the intracellular amounts. In this study we evaluated two different rapid sampling methods, one combined with cold filtration and the other with centrifugation, for their applicability to determine intracellular amounts of metabolites which are present in high concentrations in the extracellular medium. The filtration-based method combines fast sampling and immediate quenching of cellular metabolism in cold methanol, with rapid and effective removal of all compounds present outside the cells by means of direct filtration and subsequent filtration-based washing. In the centrifugation-based method, removal of the extracellular metabolites from the cells was achieved by means of multiple centrifugation and resuspension steps with the cold quenching solution. The cold filtration method was found to be highly superior to the centrifugation method to determine intracellular amounts of metabolites related to penicillin-G biosynthesis and allowed the quantification of compounds of which the extracellular amounts were 3-4 orders of magnitude higher than the intracellular amounts. Using this method for the first time allowed to measure the intracellular levels of the side chain precursor phenylacetic acid (PAA) and the product penicillin-G of the penicillin biosynthesis pathway, compounds of which the transport mechanism in Penicillium chrysogenum is still far from being sufficiently understood.

An engineered yeast efficiently secreting penicillin.

This study aimed at developing an alternative host for the production of penicillin (PEN). As yet, the industrial production of this beta-lactam antibiotic is confined to the filamentous fungus Penicillium chrysogenum. As such, the yeast Hansenula polymorpha, a recognized producer of pharmaceuticals, represents an attractive alternative. Introduction of the P. chrysogenum gene encoding the non-ribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) delta-(L-alpha-aminoadipyl)-L-cysteinyl-D-valine synthetase (ACVS) in H. polymorpha, resulted in the production of active ACVS enzyme, when co-expressed with the Bacillus subtilis sfp gene encoding a phosphopantetheinyl transferase that activated ACVS. This represents the first example of the functional expression of a non-ribosomal peptide synthetase in yeast. Co-expression with the P. chrysogenum genes encoding the cytosolic enzyme isopenicillin N synthase as well as the two peroxisomal enzymes isopenicillin N acyl transferase (IAT) and phenylacetyl CoA ligase (PCL) resulted in production of biologically active PEN, which was efficiently secreted. The amount of secreted PEN was similar to that produced by the original P. chrysogenum NRRL1951 strain (approx. 1 mg/L). PEN production was decreased over two-fold in a yeast strain lacking peroxisomes, indicating that the peroxisomal localization of IAT and PCL is important for efficient PEN production. The breakthroughs of this work enable exploration of new yeast-based cell factories for the production of (novel) beta-lactam antibiotics as well as other natural and semi-synthetic peptides (e.g. immunosuppressive and cytostatic agents), whose production involves NRPS's.

Quantitative evaluation of intracellular metabolite extraction techniques for yeast metabolomics.

Accurate determination of intracellular metabolite levels requires well-validated procedures for sampling and sample treatment. Several methods exist for metabolite extraction, but the literature is contradictory regarding the adequacy and performance of each technique. Using a strictly quantitative approach, we have re-evaluated five methods (hot water, HW; boiling ethanol, BE; chloroform-methanol, CM; freezing-thawing in methanol, FTM; acidic acetonitrile-methanol, AANM) for the extraction of 44 intracellular metabolites (phosphorylated intermediates, amino acids, organic acids, nucleotides) from S. cerevisiae cells. Two culture modes were investigated (batch and chemostat) to check for growth condition dependency, and three targeted platforms were employed (two LC-MS and one GC/MS) to exclude analytical bias. Additionally, for the determination of metabolite recoveries, we applied a novel approach based on addition of (13)C-labeled internal standards at different stages of sample processing. We found that the choice of extraction method can drastically affect measured metabolite levels, to an extent that for some metabolites even the direction of changes between growth conditions can be inverted. The best performances, in terms of efficacy and metabolite recoveries, were achieved with BE and CM, which yielded nearly identical levels for the metabolites analyzed. According to our results, AANM performs poorly in yeast and FTM cannot be considered adequate as an extraction method, as it does not ensure inactivation of enzymatic activity.

A comprehensive method for the quantification of the non-oxidative pentose phosphate pathway intermediates in Saccharomyces cerevisiae by GC-IDMS.

A gas chromatography isotope dilution mass spectrometry (GC-IDMS) method was developed for the quantification of the metabolites of the non-oxidative part of pentose phosphate pathway (PPP). A mid-polar GC column (Zebron ZB-AAA, 10m, film composition 50% phenyl 50% dimethyl polysiloxane) was used for the chromatographic separation of the intermediates. The optimized GC-MS procedure resulted in improved separation performances and higher sensitivities compared to previous methods. Furthermore, the use of (13)C-labeled cell extracts as internal standards improved the data quality and eliminated the need to perform a recovery check for each metabolite. The applicability of the new method was demonstrated by analyzing intracellular metabolite levels in samples derived from aerobic glucose-limited chemostat cultures of Saccharomyces cerevisiae at steady state as well as following a short-term glucose pulse. The major achievements of the proposed quantitative method are the independent quantification of the epimers ribulose-5-phosphate and xylulose-5-posphate and the measurement of compounds present at very low concentrations in biological samples such as erythrose-4-phosphate and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate.

Simultaneous quantification of free nucleotides in complex biological samples using ion pair reversed phase liquid chromatography isotope dilution tandem mass spectrometry.

A new sensitive and accurate analytical method has been developed for quantification of intracellular nucleotides in complex biological samples from cultured cells of different microorganisms such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Escherichia coli, and Penicillium chrysogenum. This method is based on ion pair reversed phase liquid chromatography electrospray ionization isotope dilution tandem mass spectrometry (IP-LC-ESI-ID-MS/MS. A good separation and low detection limits were observed for these compounds using dibutylamine as volatile ion pair reagent in the mobile phase of the LC. Uniformly (13)C-labeled isotopes of nucleotides were used as internal standards for both extraction and quantification of intracellular nucleotides. The method was validated by determining the linearity, sensitivity, and repeatability.

Development and application of a differential method for reliable metabolome analysis in Escherichia coli.

Quantitative metabolomics of microbial cultures requires well-designed sampling and quenching procedures. We successfully developed and applied a differential method to obtain a reliable set of metabolome data for Escherichia coli K12 MG1655 grown in steady-state, aerobic, glucose-limited chemostat cultures. From a rigorous analysis of the commonly applied quenching procedure based on cold aqueous methanol, it was concluded that it was not applicable because of release of a major part of the metabolites from the cells. No positive effect of buffering or increasing the ionic strength of the quenching solution was observed. Application of a differential method in principle requires metabolite measurements in total broth and filtrate for each measurement. Different methods for sampling of culture filtrate were examined, and it was found that direct filtration without cooling of the sample was the most appropriate. Analysis of culture filtrates revealed that most of the central metabolites and amino acids were present in significant amounts outside the cells. Because the turnover time of the pools of extracellular metabolites is much larger than that of the intracellular pools, the differential method should also be applicable to short-term pulse response experiments without requiring measurement of metabolites in the supernatant during the dynamic period.

Quantitative analysis of metabolites in complex biological samples using ion-pair reversed-phase liquid chromatography-isotope dilution tandem mass spectrometry.

A rapid, sensitive and selective ion-pair reversed-phase liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization isotope dilution tandem mass spectrometry (IP-LC-ESI-ID-MS/MS) was developed for quantitative analysis of free intracellular metabolites in cell cultures. As an application a group of compounds involved in penicillin biosynthesis pathway of Penicillium chrysogenum cells, such as penicillin G (PenG), 6-aminopenicillanic acid (6-APA), benzylpenicilloic acid (PIO), ortho-hydroxyphenyl acetic acid (o-OH-PAA), phenylacetic acid (PAA), 6-oxopipeidine-2-carboxylic acid (OPC), 8-hydroxypenicillic acid (8-HPA), L-alpha-(delta-aminoadipyl)-L-alpha-cystenyl-D-alpha-valine (ACV) and isopenicillin N (IPN) were chosen. (13)C-labeled analogs of the metabolites were added to the sample solutions as internal standards (I.S.). Sample mixtures were analyzed without any sample pretreatment. No extraction recovery check was needed because I.S. was added to the cell samples before extraction process. The method showed excellent precision (relative standard deviation (RSD)

Characterization of the interaction between human complement protein C4 and a single-chain variable fragment antibody by capillary electrophoresis and surface plasmon resonance.

Immunoaffinity capillary electrophoresis and surface plasmon resonance have been used for the characterization of the interaction between two large-sized proteins, the human complement protein C4 and the single-chain variable fragment C43. The rather high kinetic rate constants as determined by surface plasmon resonance pointed out that a capillary electrophoresis method had to be applied, in which the labeled C4 is preincubated with C43 before injection and the same concentration of C43 is included in the running buffer. Analysis of the concentration dependence of the small mobility shift of the fluorescent C4 signal upon binding of C43 resulted in a dissociation constant that was comparable to the one obtained with surface plasmon resonance. This study is one of the few examples where capillary electrophoresis is successfully used to characterize the interaction between large proteins.