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Irreversible aggregation can extremely limit the bioavailability and therapeutic activity of peptide-based drugs. There is therefore an urgent demand of effective strategy to control peptide aggregation. Recently, we found that tyrosine nitration at certain sites of peptide can effectively inhibit its aggregation. This minor modification may be an ideal strategy to the rational design of peptide-based drugs with low aggregation propensity yet without loss of bioactivity. Human calcitonin (hCT) is such a peptide hormone known for its hypocalcaemic effect but has limited pharmaceutical potential due to a high tendency to aggregate. In this study, by using multiple techniques including Fluorescence, TEM, Nu-PAGE and CD, we demonstrated that Y12 nitration of hCT would significantly inhibit its self-assembles, and we also found that this modification would not only reduce the cytotoxicity induced by peptide aggregation, but also had little effect on its potency. This finding may provide a novel strategy for clinically application of hCT instead of sCT. Tyr12 nitration of hCT could be a useful strategy for inhibiting its aggregation but not reducing the hypocalcaemic activity. Image 1 • Tyrosine nitration could effectively inhibit the formation of hCT fibril. • The low aggregation propensity of hCT (3 N) makes it less cytotoxicity than hCT. • hCT (3 N) could still maintain the approximately equally potency compared with hCT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protein tyrosine nitration is implicated in the occurrence and progression of pathological conditions involving free radical reactions. It is well recognized that hemin can catalyze protein tyrosine nitration in the presence of nitrite and hydrogen peroxide. Generally, the catalytic efficiency is positively correlated to its peroxidase activity. In this study, however, it is found that the efficiency of hemin in catalyzing protein tyrosine nitration is largely suppressed after functionalization with graphene derivatives, even though its peroxidase-like activity is more than quadrupled. Further studies show that the oxidation of tyrosine is still observed for these composites; dityrosine formation, however, is greatly inhibited. Furthermore, these composites also exhibit strong effects on the oxidation of nitrite into nitrate. Therefore, we propose a mechanism in which hemin-graphene derivatives facilitate the oxidation of tyrosine and nitrite to produce tyrosyl radicals and nitrogen dioxide radicals in the presence of hydrogen peroxide, but graphene interlayers serve as barriers that hinder radical-radical coupling reactions; consequently, protein tyrosine nitration is restrained. This property of hemin-graphene derivatives, by which they catalyze substrate oxidation but suppress radical-radical coupling reactions, shows their great potential in selective oxidation procedures for byproduct removal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that iron overload promotes alcoholic liver injury, but the doses of iron or alcohol used in studies are usually able to induce liver injury independently. Little attention has been paid to the coexistence of low alcohol consumption and mild iron overload when either of them is insufficient to cause obvious liver damage, although this situation is very common among some people. We studied the interactive effects and the underlining mechanism of mild doses of iron and alcohol on liver injury in a mouse model. Forty eight male Kunming mice were randomly divided into four groups: control, iron (300 mg/kg iron dextran, i.p.), alcohol (2 g/kg/day ethanol for four weeks i.g.), and iron plus alcohol group. After 4 weeks of treatment, mice were sacrificed and blood and livers were collected for biochemical analysis. Protein nitration level in liver tissue was determined by immunoprecipitation and Western blot analysis. Although neither iron overload nor alcohol consumption at our tested doses can cause severe liver injury, it was found that co-administration of the same doses of alcohol and iron resulted in liver injury and hepatic dysfunction, accompanied with elevated ratio of NADH/NAD+, reduced antioxidant ability, increased oxidative stress, and subsequent elevated protein nitration level. Further study revealed that triosephosphate isomerase, an important glycolytic enzyme, was one of the targets to be oxidized and nitrated, which was responsible for its inactivation. These data indicate that even under low alcohol intake, a certain amount of iron overload can cause significant liver oxidative damage, and the modification of triosephosphate isomerasemight be the important underlining mechanism of hepatic dysfunction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protein tyrosine nitration is a post-translational modification associated with numerous pathological conditions. The biological consequences of this modification strongly depend on the site selectivity. Unfortunately, to date there is still no reliable model for predicting the selectivity of protein tyrosine nitration. Previously, we found that amyloid beta (Aβ) changed the selectivity of enolase tyrosine nitration upon binding to heme. It seemed that there was a link between the hydrophilicity of Aβ and the site-specific tyrosine nitration. We further investigated the role of the hydrophilicity of the molecules that bind to heme in the selectivity of protein tyrosine nitration. We found that Aβ, Aβ, and Aβ, upon binding to heme and interacting with glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) in a site-specific manner, differently modulated the site selectivity of heme-catalyzed GAPDH tyrosine nitration. The modulation is associated with the hydrophilicity of the Aβ peptides, which changed the surrounding environment of the heme. At the same time, the Aβ-heme complexes were found to be more effective at inactivating GAPDH than heme alone, and the selective tyrosine nitration that was catalyzed by Aβ-heme played an important role. These findings suggest an alternative mechanism for the selectivity of protein tyrosine nitration, which may lead to a better understanding of the factors that influence protein tyrosine nitration selectivity and the important roles of Aβ and heme in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease, where Aβ accumulation and Aβ-dependent protein nitration play central roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iron overload is one of the most common iron-related toxicities, and liver is the major organ that is injured. Although oxidative stress is well accepted in the pathological mechanism of iron overload, nitrative modification in liver and the role of iron are relatively unknown. In this work, the nitrative and oxidative stress in liver was investigated in an iron-overload rat model. It was found that after 15 weeks of iron dextran administration, consistent with the increase of iron content in rat liver, both protein tyrosine nitration and protein oxidation were clearly elevated. By means of immunoprecipitation analysis, it was found that enolase nitration and oxidation status were significantly increased in iron-overload liver, whereas both α-enolase expression and activity were clearly decreased. The effects of different forms of iron on NaNO-HO- and peroxynitrite (ONOO)-dependent enolase nitration and oxidation were further investigated in vitro to elucidate the possible role of iron in enolase dysfunction in vivo. Compared with EDTA-Fe(III), ferric citrate, and ferritin, heme (hemin and hemoglobin) showed higher efficiency in catalyzing protein nitration in both models. Besides the major contribution of free iron (Fe and Fe) to catalyze protein oxidation, Fe also directly acted as a competitive inhibitor and produced a significant decrease in enzyme activity. These results suggest that the existence of various forms of iron is an important contributing factor to the elevated nitrative/oxidative modifications and diminished activity of α-enolase in the development and progress of iron-overload-associated syndromes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water-soluble iron porphyrins, such as FeTPPS (5,10,15,20-tetrakis (4-sulfonatophenyl) porphyrinato iron (III)), FeTMPyP (5,10,15,20-tetrakis (N-methyl-4′-pyridyl) porphyrinato iron (III) chloride) and FeTBAP (5,10,15,20-tetrakis (4-benzoic acid) porphyrinato iron (III)), are highly active catalysts for peroxynitrite decomposition and thereby have been suggested as therapeutic agent for inflammatory diseases that implicate the involvement of nitrotyrosine formation. Here, we systemically investigated catalytic properties of FeTPPS, FeTMPyP and FeTBAP on protein nitration in the presence of hydrogen peroxide and nitrite. We showed that FeTPPS, FeTBAP and FeTMPyP all exhibited higher peroxidase activity in compared with hemin. As to protein nitration, the catalytic effect of FeTPPS and FeTBAP are effective in the presence of hydrogen peroxide and nitrite, while negligible BSA nitration was observed in the case of FeTMPyP. Moreover, the underlying mechanism of the oxidation of FeTPPS, FeTBAP and FeTMPyP was further studied. Collectively, our results suggest that, compound I and II species are involved in as the key intermediates in FeTMPyP/H 2 O 2 system as similar as those in FeTPPS/H 2 O 2 and FeTBAP/H 2 O 2 system. As compared to weak antioxidants, TPPS and TBAP, however, TMPyP scavenges oxo-Fe (IV) intermediates of FeTMPyP at a faster rate by significant self-degradation; results in the shortest lifetimes of O FeIV-TMPyP and the lowest catalytic activity on oxidizing tyrosine and nitrite; and therefore, attributes to inactivation of FeTMPyP in protein nitration. In addition, association of FeTMPyP to BSA was found weak, while strong binding of FeTPPS and FeTBAP were observed. The weak binding keeps away of target residue of BSA from the center of FeTMPyP where the RNS is generated, which might be attributed as additional factors to the inactivation of FeTMPyP in protein nitration. The modification group of water soluble iron porphyrin plays an important role in determining its catalytic effect on catalyzing protein tyrosine nitration in the presence of H 2 O 2 and NO 2 −. Image 1 • FeTPPS and FeTBAP could effectively catalyze BSA nitration in the presence of H 2 O 2 and NO 2 −, FeTMPyP failed to do so. • TMPyP can rapidly scavenge oxo-Fe (IV) intermediates of FeTMPyP by significant self-degradation. • The finding will be help in the designing of balanced therapies for the intervention of peroxynitrite related" diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) is a neuropeptide that play an important role in immunoregulation and anti-inflammation. Numerous inflammatory/autoimmune disorders are associated with decreased VIP binding ability to receptors and diminished VIP activation of cAMP generation in immune cells. However, the mechanisms linking oxidative/nitrative stress to VIP immune dysfunction remain unknown. It has been reported that the elevated heme or Cu2+ in inflammatory diseases can cause oxidative and nitrative damage to nearby biological targets under high oxidative stress conditions, which affects the structure and activity of linked peptides or proteins. Thus, the VIP down-regulated immune response may be interfered by redox metal catalyzed VIP tyrosine nitration. To explore this, we systematically investigated the possibility of heme or Cu2+ to catalyze VIP tyrosine nitration. The results showed that Tyr10 and Tyr22 of VIP can both be nitrated in heme/H 2 O 2 /NO 2 − system as well as in Cu2+/H 2 O 2 /NO 2 − system. Then, we used synthetic mutant VIPs with tyrosine residues substituted by 3-nitrotyrosine to study the impact of tyrosine nitration on VIP activity in SHSY-5Y cells. Our findings demonstrated that VIP nitration dramatically decreased the content of its α-helix and random coil, suggesting that VIP nitration might reduce its affinity to the receptor. This was further confirmed in the cAMP assay. The results showed that 10 nM of these tyrosine nitrated VIPs could significantly (p < 0.01) decrease cAMP secretion compared to the wild type VIP. Our data reveal that the attenuation of the neuroprotective effect of VIP in inflammation-related diseases might be attributed to metal-catalyzed VIP tyrosine nitration. [Display omitted] • Vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) is prone to bind to heme or Cu2+. • Heme or Cu2+ can catalyze the nitration of Tyr10 and Tyr22 residues in VIP in the presence of H 2 O 2 and NO 2 −. • Tyrosine nitration of VIP reduced the content of its active monomer structure and influenced the production of cAMP in cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New studies raise the possibility that the higher glucagon (GCG) level present in type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a compensatory mechanism to enhance β-cell function, rather than induce dysregulated glucose homeostasis, due to an important role for GCG that acts directly within the pancreas on insulin secretion by intra-islet GCG signaling. However, in states of poorly controlled T2D, pancreatic α cell mass increases (overproduced GCG) in response to insufficient insulin secretion, indicating decreased local GCG activity. The reason for this decrease is not clear. Recent evidence has uncovered a new role of heme in cellular signal transduction, and its mechanism involves reversible binding of heme to proteins. Considering that protein tyrosine nitration in diabetic islets increases and glucose-stimulated insulin secretion (GSIS) decreases, we speculated that heme modulates GSIS by transient interaction with GCG and catalyzing its tyrosine nitration, and the tyrosine nitration may impair GCG activity, leading to loss of intra-islet GCG signaling and markedly impaired insulin secretion. Data presented here elucidate a novel role for heme in disrupting local GCG signaling in diabetes. Heme bound to GCG and induced GCG tyrosine nitration. Two tyrosine residues in GCG were both sensitive to the nitrating species. Further, GCG was also demonstrated to be a preferred target peptide for tyrosine nitration by co-incubation with BSA. Tyrosine nitration impaired GCG stimulated cAMP-dependent signaling in islet β cells and decreased insulin release. Our results provided a new role of heme for impaired GSIS in the pathological process of diabetes. The possible mechanism of intra-islet GCG activity impairment in diabetes. Since the majority of beta cells in human islets are in direct contact with alpha cells, there is a functional crosstalk between these two major islet cell types. Mechanistically, the positive effect of GCG on beta cell function is achieved by GCG binding to G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) (including GLP-1 receptor and GCG receptor), that are expressed in beta cells, and the activation of GPCRs signaling to stimulate the production of cAMP that acts as a necessary cofactor to support glucose-stimulated insulin secretion (GSIS) (the mechanism of GCG maintaining "β-cell tone" is shown as "Normal"). We proposed that tyrosine nitration of GCG may be one of the reason for a diminished intra-islet paracrine hormone action of GCG in diabetes. Heme bound to GCG promotes the probability of GCG tyrosine nitration in the presence of H 2 O 2 and NO 2 −. Tyrosine nitration may affect the structure of GCG, leading to impaired affinity for GPCRs, thereby decreased the stimulatory effect of GCG on insulin secretion from pancreatic beta cells (defective intra-islet GCG action due to that heme-induced GCG tyrosine nitration is shown as "Natrative stress"). [Display omitted] • Glucagon (GCG) is prone to bind to heme • Heme catalyzes GCG tyrosine nitration in the presence of H 2 O 2 and NO 2 − • GCG is a preferred target protein for tyrosine nitration • Tyrosine nitration impaired GCG's role in intra-islet paracrine signaling, which ultimately impaired insulin secretion [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Many studies have reported that oxidative and nitrative stress might be important in the pathogenesis of diabetes. By means of immunoprecipitation analysis, α-enolase (EC 4.2.1.11, 2-phospho-d-glycerate hydrolyase) was identified as the important target for oxidative and nitrative modifications in diabetic cardiac proteins. The levels of protein carbonyls and 3-nitrotyrosine residues in α-enolase (biomarkers of oxidative and nitrative damage, respectively) from cardiac proteins of diabetic rats were determined and compared with age-matched controls. After 6 weeks of streptozotocin administration, the cardiac proteins from diabetic rats showed: (a) the levels of α-enolase expression and nitration were clearly increased, whereas (b) the enolase activity and oxidation status were not significantly changed. By means of immunoprecipitation and liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry analysis, it was found that Tyr 257 and Tyr 131 of α-enolase were the most susceptible to nitration in diabetic rat heart. Further studies in vitro revealed a significant contribution of protein tyrosine nitration to the inactivation of enolase. These results suggest that tyrosine nitration of α-enolase could contribute to an impaired glycolytic activity in diabetic cardiomyopathy. Meanwhile, the up-regulation of α-enolase expression could be a protective mechanism to neutralize oxidative and nitrative stress in diabetes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Protein tyrosine nitration, protein oxidation and lipid peroxidation are nitrative/oxidative modification of protein and lipids. In this paper, a BSA (bovine serum albumin)–lecithin liposome system was used to study the nature of different forms of iron, including methemoglobin, hemin and ferric citrate, in catalyzing H2O2–nitrite system to oxidize protein and lipid as well as nitrate protein. It was found that in pH range of 5.0–9.0, in pure BSA solution or pure liposome solution, hemin and methemoglobin catalyzed protein tyrosine nitration and lipid peroxidation were decreased with the increasing of pH, while hemin and methemoglobin catalyzed protein oxidation was significantly and moderately increased, respectively. Lipid completely inhibited hemin catalyzed protein tyrosine nitration but only partially inhibited methemoglobin catalyzed protein tyrosine nitration, and its inhibitory effect on hemin induced protein oxidation was also more pronounced. In addition, BSA showed more efficient in inhibiting hemin and ferric citrate induced lipid peroxidation. At the same condition, ferric citrate was relatively ineffective in all tests. Considering protein tyrosine nitration, protein oxidation and lipid oxidation as overall oxidative damage, these results indicated that methemoglobin is more toxic than hemin and ferric citrate, the degradation procedure of heme containing macromolecules, e.g. hemoglobin to hemin and finally to low molecular weight bounded iron, is step by step detoxification. These results provide fundamental knowledge on oxidative/nitrative of biomolecules in lipid–protein coexistence system. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract Amyloid formation of human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP) is one of the most common pathological features of type 2 diabetes (T2D). Increasing evidences have shown that the overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) play an important role in the development of the T2D. Interestingly, our previous studies indicated that heme could bind to hIAPP, and the complex might induce the nitration of tyrosine residue (Y37) of hIAPP in the presence of hydrogen peroxide and nitrite. However, it remains unclear about effect of the nitration on the implicated function of hIAPP in the development of T2D. In this study, fluorescent assays, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), atomic force microscope (AFM) were used to demonstrate that nitration of hIAPP significantly decreased its fibril formation. But the decreased fibril formation was not through the diminished aggregation of hIAPP monomer as suggested by the results of circular dichroism spectroscopy (CD) and gel electrophoresis assay. Surface-enhanced raman spectroscopy (SERS) indicated that nitration of hIAPP impaired the intermolecular hydrogen bonding. On the basis of these results, we hypothesize that nitration of hIAPP may block the intermolecular hydrogen bonding, leading to the inhibition of its fibril formation. In addition, cytotoxicity study of native and modified hIAPP was also performed on INS-1 cells, which revealed exacerbated toxicity of hIAPP by its nitration. The findings in this study that nitration of hIAPP promotes its oligomer formation and thus exacerbates its cytotoxicity suggests a possible link between the nitrite (or the sum of nitrite and nitrate) levels and T2D, and ameliorated nitration of hIAPP by diminishing nitrative stress might be a promising therapeutic strategy for T2D. Graphical abstract Nitration of hIAPP remarkably decreased its fibril formation by blocking its intermolecular hydrogen bonding and π-π stacking interactions. Image 1 Highlights • The tyrosine (Y37) in hIAPP is prone to nitration in the presence of heme, H 2 O 2 and NO 2 −. • Nitration of hIAPP decreases its aggregation. • Nitration of hIAPP enhances its cytotoxicity toward ISN-1 cells. • Nitration of hIAPP blocks the intermolecular hydrogen bonding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

5,10,15,20-Tetrakis(4-sulfonatophenyl)porphyrinato iron(III) chloride (FeTPPS) is a water-soluble heme analog, which has been used as a scavenger of peroxynitrite in many studies. Similar to heme, it may also possess pseudo-peroxidase activity that could cause protein tyrosine nitration through the peroxidase-H 2 O 2 -NO 2 − pathway. In this paper, we used western blotting and spectrophotometry analysis to study the capability of FeTPPS in catalyzing protein tyrosine nitration. Furthermore, the capability of FeTPPS in catalyzing protein nitration in tissue homogenate and cultured cells was also investigated. Our results showed that FeTPPS induced bovine serum albumin (BSA) nitration in the presence of H 2 O 2 and NaNO 2 , and the reaction was dose-, time- and pH-dependent. In acidic condition, more protein was nitrated by FeTPPS than heme, which corresponded to their peroxidase activities. Meanwhile, our results also confirmed the catalytic effect of FeTPPS on protein tyrosine nitration in rat brain homogenate and human hepatocellular carcinoma (HepG2) cells. At the end of this study, we used liquid chromatography (LC)–tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) to investigate differences of site selectivity between heme and FeTPPS catalyzed protein tyrosine nitration. The result indicated that FeTPPS tended to catalyze tyrosine residues locating in more hydrophilic sites, whereas heme was more likely to induce nitration of tyrosine residues locating in relatively hydrophobic environment. Taken together, this is the first report that FeTPPS is an effective and convenient nitration catalyzer in vitro , and this study confirms that the hydrophilicity of the nitrating agents would play an important role in nitration site selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GAPDH was speculated to function as a transient trap to reduce the potential toxicity of free heme by a specific and reversible binding with heme. Up to now, there has been lack of studies focused on this effect. In this paper, the efficiency of GAPDH-heme complex on catalyzing protein carbonylation and nitration, the cross-linking of heme to protein formation, and cytotoxicity of GAPDH-heme were studied. It was found that the binding of GAPDH could inhibit H 2 O 2 -mediated degradation of heme. Peroxidase activity of GAPDH-heme complex was higher than that of free heme, but significantly lower than that of HSA-heme. Catalytic activity of heme corresponded complex toward tyrosine oxidation/nitration was decreased in the order of HSA-heme, heme and GAPDH-heme. GAPDH also inhibited heme-H 2 O 2 -NO 2 - induced protein carbonylation. No covalent bond was formed between heme and GAPDH after treated with H 2 O 2 . GAPDH was more effective than HSA on protecting cells against heme-NO 2 - -H 2 O 2 induced cytotoxicity. These results indicate that binding of GAPDH inhibits the activity of heme in catalyzing tyrosine nitration and protects the coexistent protein against oxidative damage, and the mechanism is different from that of HSA. This study may help clarifying the protective role of GAPDH acting as a chaperone in heme transfer to downstream areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]