Project description:Control of intracellular heme levels by extracellular scavenger proteins and intracellular heme oxygenases are essential functions during disease states with enhanced extracellular heme release. During severe hemolysis or rhabdomyolysis uncontrolled heme exposure can cause acute kidney injury and endothelial damage. The cytotoxic activity of heme has been primarily attributed to its pro-oxidative potential. However, the mechanisms of heme toxicity have never been systematically explored. Besides its redox reactivity, heme could also adversely alter cellular functions through its broad binding affinity to multiple non-hemoproteins. Such interactions may impair protein functions and support heme toxicity. In this study we mapped the gene expression profile of Hb triggered acute kidney injury in old blood transfused guinea pigs by serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE). Additionally, the toxic heme response of mouse embryo fibroblasts was systematically characterized on the gene and protein expression levels by gene array experiments and quantitative mass-spectrometry of stable isotope labeled cells. In all these studies, in addition to oxidative stress signals, the most significant signals were reproducibly found for biologic networks related to altered protein degradation, which ultimately triggers the response to unfolded proteins and apoptosis. These screening data could be mechanistically explained by heme-proteasome interactions and a proteasome inhibitor activity of heme. Proteasome inhibition drastically reduced the threshold of cellular toxicity during heme exposure. We therefore propose a novel model of heme toxicity whereby proteasome inhibition by the porphyrin fuels a vicious cycle of oxidative protein modification, accumulation of damaged proteins, cell damage and apoptosis. A two color common reference design was chosen with 2-4 independent biological replicates of each condition. Each experimental sample (Cy5 labeled) was hybridized against a non-treated reference sample (Cy3 labeled). To compensate for dye bias control arrays with competitively hybridized Cy3- and Cy5-labeled non-treated reference samples were used. The latter allowed for a very robust statistical analysis with pair-wise comparison of treatment array replicates versus the corresponding control array replicates.

Project description:Control of intracellular heme levels by extracellular scavenger proteins and intracellular heme oxygenases are essential functions during disease states with enhanced extracellular heme release. During severe hemolysis or rhabdomyolysis uncontrolled heme exposure can cause acute kidney injury and endothelial damage. The cytotoxic activity of heme has been primarily attributed to its pro-oxidative potential. However, the mechanisms of heme toxicity have never been systematically explored. Besides its redox reactivity, heme could also adversely alter cellular functions through its broad binding affinity to multiple non-hemoproteins. Such interactions may impair protein functions and support heme toxicity. In this study we mapped the gene expression profile of Hb triggered acute kidney injury in old blood transfused guinea pigs by serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE). Additionally, the toxic heme response of mouse embryo fibroblasts was systematically characterized on the gene and protein expression levels by gene array experiments and quantitative mass-spectrometry of stable isotope labeled cells. In all these studies, in addition to oxidative stress signals, the most significant signals were reproducibly found for biologic networks related to altered protein degradation, which ultimately triggers the response to unfolded proteins and apoptosis. These screening data could be mechanistically explained by heme-proteasome interactions and a proteasome inhibitor activity of heme. Proteasome inhibition drastically reduced the threshold of cellular toxicity during heme exposure. We therefore propose a novel model of heme toxicity whereby proteasome inhibition by the porphyrin fuels a vicious cycle of oxidative protein modification, accumulation of damaged proteins, cell damage and apoptosis. A two color common reference design was chosen with 2-8 independent biological replicates of each condition. Each experimental sample (Cy5 labeled) was hybridized against a non-treated reference sample (Cy3 labeled). To compensate for dye bias control arrays with competitively hybridized Cy3- and Cy5-labeled non-treated reference samples were used. The latter allowed for a very robust statistical analysis with pair-wise comparison of treatment array replicates versus the corresponding control array replicates.

Project description:Abstract — Insensitive munitions (IMs) improve soldier safety by decreasing sympathetic detonation during training and use in theatre. The environmental effects of IM constituents such as nitroguanidine (NQ) and IM mixture formulations such as IMX-101 remain largely unknown. In the present study, we investigated the acute (96h) toxicity of NQ and IMX-101 to zebrafish larvae, both in the parent IMs and in IMs irradiated with environmentally-relevant levels of ultraviolet (UV) energy. Zebrafish were exposed to control and ten concentrations of NQ ranging from 1 to 732 mg/L (measured concentrations) or seven concentrations of IMX-101 ranging from 2 to 122 mg/L (measured concentrations) of the parent material or material that had been UV-irradiated (UV-treated) at the equivalent of 24 hours of sunlight. The UV-treatment increased the toxicity of NQ by 17-fold, indicated by a decreased LC50 from 1323 mg/L (parent compound) to 77.2 mg/L. Similarly, UV-treatment increased the toxicity of IMX-101 by nearly two fold (LC50 decreased from 131.3 to 67.6 mg/L). Molecular responses to parent and UV-treated IMs were assessed using global transcript expression assays. Both gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) and differential transcript expression analysis coupled with pathway and annotation cluster enrichment were conducted to provide functional interpretations of expression results and hypothetical modes of toxicity. The parent NQ exposure caused significant enrichment of functions related to immune responses and proteasome-mediated protein metabolism occurring primarily at low, sublethal exposure levels (5.5 and 45.6 mg/L). Enriched functions in the IMX-101 exposure were indicative of increased xenobiotic metabolism, oxidative stress mitigation, protein degradation, and anti-inflammatory responses, each of which displayed predominantly positive concentration-response relationships. UV-treated NQ had a fundamentally different transcriptomic expression profile relative to parent NQ where positive concentration-response relationships were observed for genes involved in oxidative-stress mitigation pathways whereby we hypothesize that the increased toxicity of UV-treated NQ resulted from increased oxidative stress. This hypothesis was supported by transcriptomic responses indicative of oxidative-stress responses involved in zebrafish development, especially neurological development of visual systems and the brain. Transcriptomic profiles were similar between UV-treated versus parent IMX-101 exposures, however, more significant and diverse enrichment as well as greater magnitudes of differential expression for oxidative stress responses were observed in UV-treated IMX-101 exposures. Further, transcriptomics indicated potential for cytokine signaling suppression providing potential connections between oxidative stress and anti-inflammatory responses. Given these result, we hypothesize that the increased toxicity of UV-irradiated NQ and the IMX-101 mixture result from breakdown products with increased potential to elicit oxidative stress.

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Proteasome inhibition and oxidative biochemistry are synergistic triggers of metabolic heme toxicity (part 2)

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