Certain N-terminal peptides inhibit uptake of mature aspartate aminotransferase by isolated mitochondria

Import of mutant forms of mitochondrial aspartate aminotransferase into isolated mitochondria

To gain some insight into the role played by certain protein domains in the import of mitochondrial aspartate aminotransferase in isolated mitochondria, three protein mutants were constructed by using the plasmid pOTS-mAspAT, which contains the nucleotide sequence encoding for the mature form of this enzyme. Two mutant proteins in which Cys-166 was substituted with either serine or alanine and another protein lacking the nine N-terminal amino acids were all synthesized in a cell-free transcription/translation system. Comparison was made among the newly synthesized mutant proteins and the newly synthesized wild type aspartate aminotransferase with respect to their capability to enter mitochondria. All the mutant proteins proved to be able to enter mitochondria even though with a lower efficiency than the wild type enzyme. Interestingly the thiol reagent mersalyl proved to inhibit import of both wild type enzyme and serine mutant, whereas import of alanine mutant was found to be insensitive to mersalyl, thus showing that Cys-166 is the unique -SH group involved in import. Import of mitochondrial aspartate aminotransferase by mitochondria is shown to involve certain protein domains present in the mature protein, two of them being the Cys-166 and the N-terminal regions.

The in vitro-synthesized precursor and mature mitochondrial aspartate aminotransferase share the same import pathway in isolated mitochondria

Both the precursor and the mature form of mitochondrial aspartate aminotransferase were synthesized in a cell-free coupled transcription/translation system directed by the recombinant expression plasmid pOTS-pmAspAT and pOTS-mAspAT, respectively. Both newly synthesized forms of the protein were imported into isolated mitochondria, with the precursor correctly processed to the mature form. In both cases the import process showed resistance to externally added pronase and was abolished in mitochondria treated with the uncoupler carbonyl cyanide m-chlorophenylhydrazone. Moreover the imported products showed the same intramitochondrial localization as judged by a subfractionation procedure. In both cases import was time dependent and was completed in about 15 min. Finally a competitive inhibition of the import of the precursor of aspartate aminotransferase was found due to externally added purified aspartate aminotransferase.