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Biomedical subjects

E E Strehler

Publications and source records attributed to E E Strehler.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Characterization of the human calmodulin-like protein expressed in Escherichia coli.

The protein-coding region of an intronless human calmodulin-like gene [Koller, M., & Strehler, E. E. (1988) FEBS Lett. 239, 121-128] has been inserted into a pKK233-2 expression vector, and the 148-residue, M(r) = 16,800 human protein was purified to apparent homogeneity by phenyl-Sepharose affinity chromatography from cultures of Escherichia coli JM105 transformed with the recombinant vector. Several milligrams of the purified protein were obtained from 1 L of bacterial culture. A number of properties of human CLP were compared to those of bacterially expressed human calmodulin (CaM) and of bovine brain CaM. CLP showed a characteristic Ca(2+)-dependent electrophoretic mobility shift on SDS-polyacrylamide gels, although the magnitude of this shift was smaller than that observed with CaM. CLP was able to activate the 3',5'-cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase to the same Vmax as normal CaM, albeit with a 7-fold higher Kact. In contrast, the erythrocyte plasma membrane Ca(2+)-ATPase could only be stimulated to 62% of its maximal CaM-dependent activity by CLP. CLP was found to contain four Ca(2+)-binding sites with a mean affinity constant of 10(5) M-1, a value about 10-fold lower than that for CaM under comparable conditions. The highly tissue-specifically-expressed CLP represents a novel human Ca(2+)-binding protein showing characteristics of a CaM isoform.

3',5'-Cyclic-AMP Phosphodiesterases

Expression, purification, and properties of the plasma membrane Ca2+ pump and of its N-terminally truncated 105-kDa fragment.

Isoform 4b of the human plasma membrane Ca2+ pump was expressed in COS cells and in the baculovirus system (Sf9 cells). A 105-kDa pump fragment lacking the first two transmembrane domains and the so-called transduction domain was also expressed. The expression level was 2-4 times the background in COS cells and at least 7 times in the baculovirus system. Tests on membranes from both systems showed that the expressed pump was active. The expressed pump and the 105-kDa fragment were isolated from Sf9 cell membranes by calmodulin affinity chromatography. The pump had Ca(2+)-dependent ATPase activity with a calmodulin stimulation factor of 3, formed a La(3+)-stabilized phosphoenzyme, and had a KM (Ca2+) in the presence of calmodulin of about 1 microM. The 105-kDa fragment, assayed by the phosphoenzyme test on COS or Sf9 cell membranes or by ATPase measurements after isolation from Sf9 cells, proved inactive. Laser confocal microscopy on Sf9 cells showed that both the pump and the 105-kDa fragment were apparently associated with the plasma membrane. The expressed pump in COS and Sf9 cells and the endogenous pump in a number of other cell lines had a slower gel mobility (i.e. a higher apparent molecular mass) than the erythrocyte pump.

Amino Acid Sequence

Study of calmodulin binding to the alternatively spliced C-terminal domain of the plasma membrane Ca2+ pump.

The C-terminal regions of the four human plasma membrane Ca2+ pump isoforms 1a-d generated from alternatively spliced RNA have been expressed in Escherichia coli, and the recombinant proteins have been purified to a very high degree. The C-termini of isoforms 1a, 1c, and 1d contain an insert encoded by an alternatively spliced exon which is homologous to the calmodulin binding domain of isoform 1b. In isoforms 1c and 1d (29 and 38 amino acid insertions, respectively), subdomain A of the original calmodulin binding site of isoform 1b is followed by the spliced-in domain, which is then followed by subdomain B of the original calmodulin binding site. The positive charges of histidine residues at positions 27, 28, and 38 of the alternatively spliced sequence are likely to be responsible for the observed pH-dependent calmodulin binding to the novel "duplicated" binding site. The affinity of calmodulin for the C-terminal domains of isoforms 1a, 1c, and 1d, which contain the histidine-rich inserts, is much higher at pH 5.9 than at pH 7.2. A synthetic peptide (I31) containing 31 amino acids of the alternatively spliced sequence (from residue 9 to 40) also binds calmodulin with strong pH dependency. Alternative splicing in the C-terminal domain is proposed to confer pH dependence to the regulation of the activity of Ca2+ pump isoforms.

Amino Acid Sequence

Microdiversity of human-plasma-membrane calcium-pump isoform 2 generated by alternative RNA splicing in the N-terminal coding region.

cDNA species covering the entire coding sequence of the human homologue of the rat plasma membrane Ca(2+)-ATPase (PMCA) isoform 2 have been isolated and characterized. The deduced amino acid sequence shows 99% identity with that of the rat protein and can be aligned with the latter without gaps except for one 14-amino-acid-residue insert in the region immediately preceding the putative phospholipid-sensitive domain in the human pump. cDNA clones isolated by anchored polymerase-chain reaction revealed additional microheterogeneity in the same N-terminal PMCA2-coding region. Alternative RNA splicing involving a region of 135 nucleotides generates three types of cDNA. One does not contain any of the 135 bp, and the other two contain 42 bp or the entire 135 bp of the optional sequence. Analysis of genomic DNA indicates that this sequence is encoded by three separate exons of 33, 60 and 42 bp. Although each of these exons could be inserted into the mRNA without changing the reading frame, polymerase-chain amplifications using cDNA libraries from several human tissues show that the 33-bp and the 60-bp exons are never independently used during splicing. The unequal distribution of the splice variants suggests tissue-specific regulation of the alternative-splicing pathways and indicates a functional specialization of the encoded isoform subtypes.

Amino Acid Sequence

Cloning an Escherichia coli gene encoding a protein remarkably similar to mammalian aldehyde dehydrogenases.

The nucleotide (nt) sequence of 2.9 kb of Escherichia coli genomic DNA that encompasses a gene encoding a putative aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) has been determined. The presence of an open reading frame beginning 2 nt downstream from the ALDH-coding sequence indicates that this gene may be part of a larger operon. An extended upstream nt sequence displays striking similarity to sequences found upstream or in intergenic regions of a number of other bacterial genes. Crude cell extracts from E. coli grown under several different conditions show weak but measurable ALDH enzyme activity that prefers NADP+ over NAD+ as coenzyme; however, aldH gene expression appears to be very low, since no specific transcripts derived from the novel gene can be detected on Northern blots of RNA isolated from these cells. The deduced E. coli protein contains 495 amino acid (aa) residues with a calculated Mr of 53418. Its aa sequence showed marked similarity to NAD(+)-dependent ALDHs of eukaryotes. About 40% aa sequence identity, and over 60% similarity, are detected between the E. coli protein and both the cytosolic (class-1) and the mitochondrial (class-2) forms of mammalian ALDHs. In contrast to the mammalian enzymes, which contain eight to eleven Cys residues, only four Cys are present in the E. coli protein, and of these only Cys302, corresponding to the disulfiram-sensitive residue in the mammalian enzymes, is found at a conserved position in both the prokaryotic and the eukaryotic ALDHs. The availability of a bacterial ALDH with a high degree of similarity to mammalian ALDHs promises to facilitate future structural studies on these enzymes.

Aldehyde Dehydrogenase

Characterization of two novel human retropseudogenes related to the calmodulin-encoding gene, CaMII.

Two human genomic clones (lambda hg22 and lambda hg29), containing two novel calmodulin (CaM) retropseudogenes, were isolated and characterized. The two pseudogenes show high similarity with the human CaMII cDNA, hCE1 [SenGupta et al., J. Biol. Chem. 262 (1987) 16663-16670] and the CaMII-type retropseudogene, hCE2 (CaMII-psi 1) [SenGupta et al., Nucleic Acids Res. 17 (1989) 2868]. One of them, in clone lambda hg22 (CaMII-psi 2), shows all the characteristics of a processed pseudogene. In clone lambda hg29 (CaMII-psi 3), however, an Alu repetitive sequence was detected immediately upstream from the ancestral 5'-untranslated region. Downstream from the truncated 3'-untranslated region, three additional copies of Alu repetitive sequences flanking about 750 nucleotides of unknown origin were found. Such a processed retropseudogene flanked by multiple Alu repeats may be a target for further recombination events. The three retropseudogenes CaMII-psi 1, CaMII-psi 2 and CaMII-psi 3 are estimated to be about 49, 21 and 25 million years old, respectively.

Animals

Localization of two genes encoding plasma membrane Ca2(+)-transporting ATPases to human chromosomes 1q25-32 and 12q21-23.

Human plasma membrane Ca2(+)-ATPase (PMCA) isoforms are encoded by at least four separate genes and the diversity of these enzymes is further increased by alternative splicing of transcripts. Cloned cDNAs for two of these isoforms have been used as probes to localize chromosomally the human PMCA1 (ATP2B1) gene to 12q21-q23 and PMCA4 (ATP2B2) to 1q25-q32. These results were obtained by three independent methods, including Southern analysis of human-rodent somatic cell hybrids, in situ hybridization of human metaphase spreads, and genetic linkage analysis in the CEPH pedigrees. High-frequency RFLPs detected at each locus were used in these linkage analyses. No evidence was obtained for multiple copies of the gene at either locus. A cross-hybridizing sequence was detected with PMCA4 probes on Xq13-qter at low stringency. Further studies are required to determine whether this X-chromosomal sequence represents a third member of the PMCA gene family.

Blotting, Southern

Structural organization of the human CaMIII calmodulin gene.

The complete structural organization of the human calmodulin III gene has been determined. This gene specifies the mRNA represented by the previously reported cDNA ht6. The gene contains six exons spread over a total of approx. 10 kb of DNA. Its exon-intron organization is identical to that of the only known chicken calmodulin gene and to that of two of the three characterized rat calmodulin genes. As in many other genes encoding Ca2+ binding proteins, intron 1 separates the ATG initiation codon from the remainder of the coding region. The major and two minor sites of transcription initiation have been determined by primer extension and ribonuclease protection assays. The DNA sequence in the promoter and 5' untranslated region is extremely GC-rich. No typical TATA and CAAT boxes are present upstream of the major transcriptional start site; however, a consensus CAAT box sequence is found further upstream and may play a role in transcriptional initiation from the minor start sites. Six sequence elements with high similarity to monkey SV40-like Sp1-binding regions are present in the putative promoter region, two of which contain perfect GGGCGG core sequences. The structure of the human calmodulin III gene promoter indicates that this gene belongs to a class of 'house-keeping' genes but that its level of expression may also be specifically regulated.

Amino Acid Sequence

Peptide sequence analysis and molecular cloning reveal two calcium pump isoforms in the human erythrocyte membrane.

The sequence of more than 1,000 amino acid residues, derived from two different isoforms, has been determined from peptides generated from purified human erythrocyte membrane Ca2(+)-ATPase (hPMCA). Several of these peptide sequences correspond to the previously reported, cDNA deduced sequence of the "teratoma" Ca2+ pump isoform hPMCA1 (Verma, A. K., Filoteo, A. G., Stanford, D. R., Wieben, E. D., Penniston, J. T., Strehler, E. E., Fischer, R., Heim, R., Vogel, G., Matthews, S., Strehler-Page, M.-A., James, P., Vorherr, T., Krebs, J., and Carafoli, E. (1988) J. Biol. Chem. 263, 14152-14159). The complete primary structure of a novel isoform (hPMCA3) has been determined by molecular cloning and nucleotide sequencing of its corresponding cDNA. This new member of the plasma membrane Ca2+ pump family consists of 1,205 amino acid residues with a calculated Mr of 133,930, and it shows 88% similarity (75% identity) with the previously sequenced pump isoform. Specific probes detect major mRNA species of 5.6 kilobases for hPMCA1, and of 7.5 kilobases for hPMCA3, on Northern blots of human K562 erythroleukemic cell RNA. A large number of peptide sequences match perfectly with only one or the other of these isoforms and all peptides (with 6 exceptions corresponding to a contaminant protein or to a third minor Ca2+ pump isoform) are found in either only one or in both of the isoforms. The two erythrocyte Ca2+ pumps display high sequence divergence in a few localized regions that may determine isoform-specific functional specializations; for example, the putative extracellular loop separating transmembrane domains 1 and 2, the highly negatively charged region previously suggested to be involved in Ca2+ binding, and the site of cAMP-dependent protein kinase phosphorylation.

Amino Acid Sequence

Plasma membrane Ca2+ pumps and Na+/Ca2+ exchangers.

Membrane-intrinsic transport systems play an essential role in intracellular Ca2+ homeostasis. ATP-driven Ca2+ pumps and carrier-mediated Na+/Ca2+ exchangers are the two specific Ca2+ transporting systems mainly responsible for Ca2+ extrusion across the plasma membrane. Ca2+ pumps operate in all eukaryotic cell types and are characterized by their high Ca2+ affinity and their specific regulation by direct interaction with Ca2+/calmodulin. Na+/Ca2+ exchangers are particularly abundant in excitable tissues and are responsible for the bulk Ca2+ efflux in these tissues. Recent success in the molecular characterization of the pumps has led to the determination of complete amino acid sequences for several isoforms and has allowed the identification and topological assignment of important functional and regulatory domains. Genetic evidence indicates that mammalian Ca2+ pump diversity is generated from a multigene family and via alternative RNA splicing. Different isoforms may vary in their regulatory properties, presumably reflecting different physiological requirements of the tissues of their expression. Although the molecular characterization of Na+/Ca2+ exchangers is not as far advanced as that of the pumps, recent studies have established detailed kinetic, stoichiometric and regulatory properties of these systems. Together with advances in expression cloning methods these studies promise to result in a rapid improvement of our knowledge of the functional properties of these ion transporters on a molecular level.

Animals

mRNAs for plasma membrane calcium pump isoforms differing in their regulatory domain are generated by alternative splicing that involves two internal donor sites in a single exon.

cDNA clones coding for human plasma membrane Ca2+ pump isoforms have been isolated from a fetal skeletal muscle cDNA library. Compared with the sequence of a teratoma cDNA-encoded pump these clones specify isoforms that contain either 29- or 38-amino acid insertions within the calmodulin-binding region. Replacement of two basic arginine residues by an aspartic acid and a glutamine residue could influence the binding of calmodulin to these isoforms. RNase mapping shows that RNA species containing the 29-residue-encoding insertion are particularly abundant in skeletal muscles. The sequences coding for the insertions are present on a single 154-base-pair exon, as demonstrated by an analysis of the corresponding genomic region, and they are included in their respective mRNAs by alternative splicing involving the differential usage of two internal "cryptic" donor splice sites in the presence of a nearby canonical one. Inclusion of the complete 154-base-pair exon results in an mRNA coding for a pump protein with a shorter C-terminal amino acid sequence that lacks a consensus site for phosphorylation by the cAMP-dependent kinase. Exclusion, inclusion, or partial inclusion of the same exon can thus lead to the production of four different mRNAs from a single gene. When expressed as protein, these mRNAs encode Ca2+ pump isoforms that differ in their C-terminal regulatory domains.

Adult

Multiple divergent mRNAs code for a single human calmodulin.

The isolation of a novel complementary DNA (cDNA) clone coding for human calmodulin (CaM) is reported. Although it encodes a protein indistinguishable from the only known higher vertebrate calmodulin, its nucleotide sequence varies extensively from that of two previously reported human CaM cDNAs (Wawrzynczak and Perham, 1984; SenGupta et al., 1987). Only 82 and 81% identity, respectively, is found between the newly isolated and the two known human mRNAs in their coding regions. No striking homology is present in their noncoding regions. Codon usage in the three CaM mRNAs is also surprisingly divergent. A 2.3-kilobase mRNA corresponding to the newly isolated clone is expressed to varying extents in several human tissues, together with an approximately 0.8-kilobase mRNA species presumably arising from alternative polyadenylation of the same primary transcript. The results indicate that the human genome contains at least three divergent CaM genes that are under selective pressure to encode an identical protein while maintaining maximally divergent nucleotide sequences. Partial characterization of a genomic clone specifying the 3' portion of the newly identified CaM mRNA shows that this gene contains introns at identical positions as the previously characterized bona fide vertebrate CaM genes. Evolutionary implications of the presence of a CaM multigene family are discussed.

Amino Acid Sequence

Characterization of an intronless human calmodulin-like pseudogene.

We report the isolation and characterization of a human genomic clone encoding a calmodulin-like pseudogene. It contains an open reading frame of 444 nucleotides, not interrupted by introns. The nucleotide sequence of the open reading frame shows 80%, 71% and 69% identity to the previously reported human calmodulin cDNAs lambda ht6 [17], hCWP [22], and lambda hCE1 [23], respectively. The derived amino acid sequence has only 85% identity to vertebrate calmodulin, but shows four potentially functional Ca2+-binding loops. In the human tissues tested, this pseudogene is not expressed, though gene structure including promoter elements and a putative polyadenylation site seems to be intact.

Amino Acid Sequence

Complete primary structure of a human plasma membrane Ca2+ pump.

cDNAs coding for a plasma membrane Ca2+ pump were isolated from a human teratoma library and sequenced. The translated sequence contained 1,220 amino acids with a calculated molecular weight of 134,683. All regions of functional importance known from other ion-transporting ATPases could be identified. The translated sequence also contained, near the carboxyl terminus, the calmodulin-binding domain and two domains which are very rich in glutamic acid and aspartic acid. These two domains resemble calmodulin somewhat and one of them may play a role in the binding of Ca2+. The enzyme also contains domains rich in serine and threonine, one of which has a sequence matching those of good cAMP-dependent protein kinase substrates. The carboxyl-terminal region is important for regulation by calmodulin, proteolysis, and phosphorylation. Near the amino terminus are two domains which are very rich in lysine and glutamic acid, as well as two domains resembling EF hands, one of which also has some resemblance to calmodulin. Comparison of the cloned sequence with peptide sequences from the erythrocyte Ca2+ pump showed that the two proteins have a very high proportion of identical residues but are not 100% identical, indicating that they represent different isozymes.

Amino Acid Sequence