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Phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase Cs (PI-PLCs, EC 3.1.4.10) are ubiquitous enzymes that cleave phosphatidylinositol or phosphorylated derivatives, generating second messengers in eukaryotic cells. A catalytic diad at the active site of Bacillus cereus PI-PLC composed of aspartate-274 and histidine-32 was postulated from the crystal structure to form a catalytic triad with the 2-OH group of the substrate [Heinz, D. W., et al. (1995) EMBO J. 14, 3855-3863]. This catalytic diad has been observed directly by proton NMR. The single low-field line in the 1H NMR spectrum is assigned by site-directed mutagenesis: The peak is present in the wild type but absent in the mutants H32A and D274A, and arises from the histidine Hdelta1 forming the Asp274-His32 hydrogen bond. This hydrogen is solvent-accessible, and exchanges slowly with H2O on the NMR time scale. The position of the low-field peak shifts from 16.3 to 13.8 ppm as the pH is varied from 4 to 9, reflecting a pKa of 8.0 at 6 degrees C, which is identified with the pKa of His32. The Hdelta1 signal is modulated by rapid exchange of the Hepsilon2 with the solvent. Estimates of the exchange rate as a function of pH and protection factors are derived from a line shape analysis. The NMR behavior is remarkably similar to that of the serine proteases. The postulated function of the Asp274-His32 diad is to hydrogen-bond with the 2-OH of phosphatidylinositol (PI) substrate to form a catalytic triad analogous to Asp-His-Ser of serine proteases. This is an example of substrate-assisted catalysis where the substrate provides the catalytic nucleophile of the triad. This hydrogen bond becomes shorter as the imidazole is protonated, suggesting it is stronger in the transition state, contributing further to the catalytic efficiency. The hydrogen bond fits the NMR criteria for a short, strong hydrogen bond, i.e., a highly deshielded proton resonance, bond length of 2.64 +/- 0.04 A at pH 6 measured by NMR, a D/H fractionation factor significantly lower than 1.0, and a protection factor > or = 100.

The distribution of the urokinase-type plasminogen activator receptor (uPAR) on human glioma cells was examined as a function of culture conditions, using immunofluorescence and immunophotoelectron microscopy. Both uPAR colocalization with focal adhesion proteins and glioma cell motility were maximal in medium containing whole serum or a serum fraction retained by a 500,000 mol wt cutoff centrifugal concentration filter. High motility also took place in medium containing a serum fraction passed by the 500,000 cutoff filter but retained by a 100,000 cutoff filter and in minimal medium containing added vitronectin; however, under these conditions only a small percentage of the otherwise abundant focal adhesions contained colocalized uPAR. Glioma cells in minimal medium with added laminin migrated with a highly elongated morphology but without either classical focal adhesions or well-defined uPAR labeling. In contrast, glioma cells in minimal medium with no additions did not migrate, nor did they adhere well or display defined labeling patterns for focal adhesion proteins or uPAR. The results indicate that high-molecular-weight serum protein complexes promote both uPAR-focal adhesion colocalization and cell migration in glioma cells. However, conditions can be selected in which migration takes place with minimal uPAR-focal adhesion localization, as well as in the absence of apparent focal adhesions.

The bacterial phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C (PI-PLC) is a small, water-soluble enzyme that cleaves the natural membrane lipids PI, lyso-PI, and glycosyl-PI. The crystal structure, NMR and enzymatic mechanism of bacterial PI-PLCs are reviewed. These enzymes consist of a single domain folded as a (betaalpha)(8)-barrel (TIM barrel), are calcium-independent, and interact weakly with membranes. Sequence similarity among PI-PLCs from different bacterial species is extensive, and includes the residues involved in catalysis. Bacterial PI-PLCs are structurally similar to the catalytic domain of mammalian PI-PLCs. Comparative studies of both prokaryotic and eukaryotic isozymes have proved useful for the identification of distinct regions of the proteins that are structurally and functionally important.

Phosphate analyses are fundamental to a broad range of biochemical applications involving inorganic phosphate and organic phosphoesters such as phospholipids, phosphorylated proteins, and nucleic acids. A practical automated method utilizing robotics is described in this report. Five colorimetric methods of phosphate analyses based on formation of a phosphomolybdate complex and compatible with the automated assay were tested, and the fundamental chemistry is discussed. The relative sensitivities are malachite green > crystal violet > quinaldine red > ascorbate reduction > antimony-modified ascorbate reduction, although only a fourfold improvement was observed in going from the modified ascorbate procedure to malachite green. Malachite green was selected to optimize the assay because this dye provided the highest sensitivity. However, where color stability and low blanks are more important than sensitivity, the ascorbate reduction and quinaldine red methods were found to be better choices than malachite green. Automation using a robotic liquid-handling system substantially reduces the labor required to process large arrays of samples. The result is a sensitive, nonradioactive assay of inorganic phosphate with high throughput. A digestion step in an acid-resistant 96-well plate was developed to extend the assay to phosphate esters. The robotic-based assay was demonstrated with inorganic phosphate and a common phospholipid, phosphatidylcholine., (Copyright 1999 Academic Press.)

The role of amino acid residues located in the active site pocket of phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C (PI-PLC) from Bacillus cereus[Heinz, D. W., Ryan, M., Bullock, T., & Griffith, O. H. (1995) EMBO J. 14, 3855-3863] was investigated by site-directed mutagenesis, kinetics, and crystal structure analysis. Twelve residues involved in catalysis and substrate binding (His32, Arg69, His82, Gly83, Lys115, Glu117, Arg163, Trp178, Asp180, Asp198, Tyr200, and Asp274) were individually replaced by 1-3 other amino acids, resulting in a total number of 21 mutants. Replacements in the mutants H32A, H32L, R69A, R69E, R69K, H82A, H82L, E117K, R163I, D198A, D198E, D198S, Y200S, and D274S caused essentially complete inactivation of the enzyme. The remaining mutants (G83S, K115E, R163K, W178Y, D180S, Y200F, and D274N) exhibited reduced activities up to 57% when compared with wild-type PI-PLC. Crystal structures determined at a resolution ranging from 2.0 to 2.7 A for six mutants (H32A, H32L, R163K, D198E, D274N, and D274S) showed that significant changes were confined to the site of the respective mutation without perturbation of the rest of the structure. Only in mutant D198E do the side chains of two neighboring arginine residues move across the inositol binding pocket toward the newly introduced glutamic acid. An analysis of these structure-function relationships provides new insight into the catalytic mechanism, and suggests a molecular explanation of some of the substrate stereospecificity and inhibitor binding data available for this enzyme.

Two active site histidine residues have been implicated in the catalysis of phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C (PI-PLC). In this report, we present the first study of the pKa values of histidines of a PI-PLC. All six histidines of Bacillus cereus PI-PLC were studied by 2D NMR spectroscopy and site-directed mutagenesis. The protein was selectively labeled with 13C epsilon 1-histidine. A series of 1H-13C HSQC NMR spectra were acquired over a pH range of 4.0-9.0. Five of the six histidines have been individually substituted with alanine to aid the resonance assignments in the NMR spectra. Overall, the remaining histidines in the mutants show little chemical shift changes in the 1H-13C HSQC spectra, indicating that the alanine substitution has no effect on the tertiary structure of the protein. H32A and H82A mutants are inactive enzymes, while H92A and H61A are fully active, and H81A retains about 15% of the wild-type activity. The active site histidines, His32 and His82, display pKa values of 7.6 and 6.9, respectively. His92 and His227 exhibit pKa values of 5.4 and 6.9. His61 and His81 do not titrate over the pH range studied. These values are consistent with the crystal structure data, which shows that His92 and His227 are on the surface of the protein, whereas His61 and His81 are buried. The pKa value of 6.9 corroborates the hypothesis of His82 acting as a general acid in the catalysis. His32 is essential to enzyme activity, but its putative role as the general base is in question due to its relatively high pKa.

A novel cell surface phosphoinositide-cleaving phospholipase C (ecto-PLC) activity was isolated from cultured cells by exploiting its presumed external exposure. Biotinylation of intact cells followed by solubilization of the biotinylated proteins from a membrane fraction and recovery onto immobilized-avidin beads, allowed assay of this cell surface enzyme activity apart from the background of the substantial family of intracellular PLCs. Several cell lines of differing ecto-PLC expression were examined as well as cells stably transfected to overexpress the glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GP) anchored protein human placental alkaline phosphatase (PLAP) as a cell surface enzyme marker. The resulting bead preparations from ecto-PLC positive cells possessed calcium-dependent PLC activity with preference for lysophosphatidylinositol (lysaPI) rather than phosphatidylinositol (PI). The function of ecto-PLC of intact cells evidently is not to release GPI-anchored proteins at the cell surface, as no detectable Ca(2+)-dependent release of overexpressed PLAP from ecto-PLC-positive cells was observed. To investigate the cell surface linkage of the ecto-PLC itself, intact cells were treated with bacterial PI-PLC to cleave simple GPI anchors, but no decrease in ecto-PLC activity was observed. High ionic strength washes of biotinylated membranes prior to the generation of bead preparations did not substantially reduce the lysoPI-PLC activity. The results verify that the ecto-PLC is truly cell surface-exposed, and unlike other members of the PLC family that are thought to be peripheral membrane proteins, this novel lysoPI-PLC is most likely a true membrane protein.

Substrate analog inhibitors of Bacillus cereus phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C (PI-PLC) were synthesized and screened for their suitability to map the active site region of the enzyme by protein crystallography. Analogs of the natural substrate phosphatidylinositol (PI) were designed to examine the importance of the lipid portion and the inositol phosphate head group for binding to the enzyme. The synthetic compounds contained pentyl, hexyl, or hexanoyl and octyl lipid chains at the sn-1 and sn-2 positions of the glycerol backbone and phosphonoinositol, phosphonic acid, methyl phosphonate, phosphatidic acid, or methyl phosphate at the sn-3 position. The most hydrophobic compound, dioctyl methyl phosphate 14, was also the best inhibitor with an IC50 of 12 microM. In a series of dihexyl lipids, compounds with phosphonoinositol head groups inhibited more strongly than those that do not contain inositol but are otherwise identical. Compound 29, a short-chain lipid with a phosphonoinositol head group, was found to be a competitive inhibitor and the most potent in this series with an IC50 of 18 microM (Ki = 14 microM). Analogs with dihexyl chains were better inhibitors than those with dihexanoyl chains, presumably because the ether-linked lipids are more hydrophobic than the ester-linked lipids. No appreciable difference in inhibition was found between a phosphonoinositol lipid and the corresponding difluorophosphonoinositol lipid. Inositols and inositol derivatives that do not contain lipid moieties show IC50s about 3 orders of magnitude above those of the short-chain lipids. In this group, glucosaminyl(alpha 1-->6)-D-myo-inositol inhibited more strongly than myo-inositol, which in turn is a better inhibitor than inositol phosphate. The addition of polyethylene glycol (PEG-600) resulted in a marked decrease in inhibition by the short-chain lipids, but had little effect on the water-soluble head group analogs. This is accounted for in terms of solubilization of the amphipathic inhibitors by PEG. Since PEG is required in the crystallization, these data indicate that the best strategy for obtaining enzyme inhibitor complexes is to start by cocrystallizing PI-PLC with the head group analogs. The next step is to synthetically add the shortest possible hydrophobic moieties to the analogs and cocrystallize these with the enzyme. This strategy may be applicable to other lipolytic enzymes.

Numerous proteins on the external surface of the plasma membrane are anchored by glycosylated derivatives of phosphatidylinositol (GPI), rather than by hydrophobic amino acids embedded in the phospholipid bilayer. These GPI anchors are cleaved by phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipases C (PI-PLCs) to release a water-soluble protein with an exposed glycosylinositol moiety and diacylglycerol, which remains in the membrane. We have previously determined the crystal structure of Bacillus cereus PI-PLC, the enzyme which is widely used to release GPI-anchored proteins from membranes, as free enzyme and also in complex with myo-inositol [Heinz, D.W., Ryan, M. Bullock, T.L., & Griffith, O. H. (1995) EMBO J. 14, 3855-3863]. Here we report the refined 2.2 A crystal structure of this enzyme complexed with a segment of the core of all GPI anchors, glucosaminyl(alpha 1-->6)-D-myo-inositol [GlcN-(alpha 1-->6)Ins ]. The myo-inositol moiety of GlcN(alpha 1-->6)Ins is well-defined and occupies essentially the same position in the active site as does free myo-inositol, which provides convincing evidence that the enzyme utilizes the same catalytic mechanism for cleavage of PI and GPI anchors. The myo-inositol moiety makes several specific hydrogen bonding interactions with active site residues. In contrast, the glucosamine moiety lies exposed to solvent at the entrance of the active site with minimal specific protein contacts. The glucosamine moiety is also less well-defined, suggesting enhanced conformational flexibility. On the basis of the positioning of GlcN(alpha 1-->6)Ins in the active site, it is predicted that the remainder of the GPI-glycan makes little or no specific interactions with B. cereus PI-PLC. This explains why B. cereus PI-PLC can cleave GPI anchors having variable glycan structures.

Photoelectron imaging is a sensitive surface technique in which photons are used to excite electron emission. This novel method has been applied successfully in studies of relatively flat cultured cells, viruses, and protein-DNA complexes. However, rounded-up cell types such as tumor cells frequently are more difficult to image. By comparing photoelectron images of uncoated and metal-coated MCF-7 human breast carcinoma cells, it is shown that the problem is specimen charging rather than a fundamental limitation of the electron imaging process. This is confirmed by emission current measurements on uncoated monolayers of MCF-7 carcinoma cells and flatter, normal Wi-38 fibroblasts. We report here that sample charging in photoelectron microscopy can be eliminated in most specimens by simultaneous use of two light sources--the standard UV excitation source (e.g., 254 nm) and a longer wavelength light source (e.g., 325 nm). The reduction in sample charging results largely from enhanced photoconduction in the bulk sample and greatly extends the range of cells that can be examined by photoelectron imaging. The contributions of photoconductivity, the electric field of the imaging system, and the short escape depths of the photoelectrons combine to make photoelectron imaging a uniquely sensitive technique for the study of biological surfaces.

A phosphatidylinositol-cleaving phospholipase C (PI-PLC) activity is released into the extracellular environment by intact Swiss 3T3 cell cultures. The activity is found in both serum-containing and serum-free defined culture medium. The cells remain attached and intact by Trypan Blue exclusion and lactate dehydrogenase assays. The activity is specific for phosphoinositides as no cleavage of phosphatidylcholine is observed. The activity is a phospholipase C rather than D since the water soluble products formed from cleavage of [3H]phosphatidylinositol were inositol phosphates and not inositol. Analysis of the inositol phosphate products showed a variation in composition with the pH of the assay, the ratio of noncyclic:cyclic forms being 60:40 at pH 7.5 and 40:60 at pH 5.5. This external phospholipase C resembles the well-characterized intracellular isozymes in that it is calcium-dependent and has a pH optimum between 5 and 6. From membrane filter assays the molecular weight of the native enzyme is estimated to be between 50 and 100 kDa.

Photoelectron imaging (photoelectron emission microscopy, PEM or PEEM) is a promising high resolution surface-sensitive technique for biophysical studies. At present, image quality is often limited by the underlying substrate. For photoelectron imaging, the substrate must be electrically conductive, low in electron emission, and relatively flat. A number of conductive substrate materials with relatively low electron emission were examined for surface roughness. Low angle, unidirectional shadowing of the specimens followed by photoelectron microscopy was found to be an effective way to test the quality of substrate surfaces. Optimal results were obtained by depositing approximately 0.1 nm of platinum-palladium (80:20) at an angle of 3 degrees. Among potential substrates for photoelectron imaging, silicon and evaporated chromium surfaces were found to be much smoother than evaporated magnesium fluoride, which initially appeared promising because of its very low electron emission. The best images were obtained with a chromium substrate coated with a thin layer of dextran derivatized with spermidine, which facilitated the spreading and adhesion of biomolecules to the surfaces. Making use of this substrate, improved photoelectron images are reported for tobacco mosaic virus particles and DNA-recA complexes.