Expression, purification, renaturation and activation of fish myostatin expressed in Escherichia coli: facilitation of refolding and activity inhibition by myostatin prodomain

Characterization of tolloid-mediated cleavage of the GDF8 procomplex

Growth differentiation factor 8 (GDF8), a.k.a. myostatin, is a member of the larger TGFβ superfamily of signaling ligands. GDF8 has been well characterized as a negative regulator of muscle mass. After synthesis, GDF8 is held latent by a noncovalent complex between the N-terminal prodomain and the signaling ligand. Activation of latent GDF8 requires proteolytic cleavage of the prodomain at residue D99 by a member of the tolloid family of metalloproteases. While tolloid proteases cleave multiple substrates, they lack a conserved consensus sequence. Here, we investigate the tolloid cleavage site of the GDF8 prodomain to determine what residues contribute to tolloid recognition and subsequent proteolysis. Using sequential alanine mutations, we identified several residues adjacent to the scissile bond, including Y94, that when mutated, abolish tolloid-mediated activation of latent GDF8. Using the astacin domain of Tll1 (Tolloid Like 1) we determined that prodomain mutants were more resistant to proteolysis. Purified latent complexes harboring the prodomain mutations, D92A and Y94A, impeded activation by tolloid but could be fully activated under acidic conditions. Finally, we show that co-expression of GDF8 WT with prodomain mutants that were tolloid resistant, suppressed GDF8 activity. Taken together our data demonstrate that residues towards the N-terminus of the scissile bond are important for tolloid-mediated activation of GDF8 and that the tolloid-resistant version of the GDF8 prodomain can function dominant negative to WT GDF8.

Structural and functional characterizations of activin type 2B receptor (acvr2b) ortholog from the marine fish, gilthead sea bream, Sparus aurata: evidence for gene duplication of acvr2b in fish

Myostatin (MSTN), a negative regulator of muscle growth and a member of the transforming growth factor-β superfamily, can bind the two activin type 2 receptors (ACVR2). It has been previously shown that WT mice injected with ACVR2B extracellular domain (ACVR2B-ECD) had higher muscle mass. Likewise, fish larvae immersed in Pichia pastoris culture supernatant, containing goldfish Acvr2b-ECD, showed enhanced larval growth. However, it is not clear whether fish Mstn1 and Mstn2 signal through the same receptor and whether fish express more than one acvr2b gene. In the current study, three cDNAs encoding acvr2b (saacvr2b-1, saacvr2b-2a, and saacvr2b-2b) were cloned from gilthead sea bream. All three contain the short extracellular binding domain, a short transmembrane region, and a conserved catalytic domain of serine/threonine protein kinase. Bioinformatics analysis provided evidence for the existence of two acvr2b genes (acvr2b-1 and acvr2b-2) in several other fish species as well, probably as a result of gene or genome duplication. The two isoforms differ in their amino acid sequences. The direct inhibitory effect of Acvr2b-ECD on Mstn activity was tested in vitro. The saAcvr2b-1-ECD was expressed in the yeast P. pastoris. Evidence is provided for N-glycosylation of Acvr2b-1-ECD. The affinity-purified Acvr2b-1-ECD inhibited recombinant mouse/rat/human mature MSTN activity when determined in vitro using the CAGA-luciferase assay in A204 cells. A lower inhibitory activity was obtained when unprocessed purified, furin-digested, and activated saMstn1 was used. Results of this study demonstrate for the first time the existence of two acvr2b genes in fish. In addition, the study shows that bioactive fish Acvr2b-ECD can be produced from P. pastoris.

Genomic cloning and promoter functional analysis of myostatin-2 in shi drum, Umbrina cirrosa: conservation of muscle-specific promoter activity

Myostatin (MSTN) is a member of the transforming growth factor-ß superfamily, known as a negative regulator of skeletal muscle development and growth in mammals. In contrast to mammals, fish possess at least two paralogs of MSTN: MSTN-1 and MSTN-2. Here we describe the cloning and sequence analysis of spliced and precursor (unspliced) transcripts as well as the 5' flanking region of MSTN-2 from the marine fish Umbrina cirrosa (ucMSTN-2). In silico analysis revealed numerous putative cis regulatory elements including several E-boxes known as binding sites to myogenic transcription factors. Transient transfection experiments using non-muscle and muscle cell lines showed high transcriptional activity in muscle cells and in differentiated neural cells, in accordance with our previous findings in MSTN-2 promoter from Sparus aurata. Comparative informatics analysis of MSTN-2 from several fish species revealed high conservation of the predicted amino acid sequence as well as the gene structure (exon length) although intron length varied between species. The proximal promoter of MSTN-2 gene was found to be conserved among Perciforms. In conclusion, this study reinforces our conclusion that MSTN-2 promoter is a very strong promoter, especially in muscle cells. In addition, we show that the MSTN-2 gene structure is highly conserved among fishes as is the predicted amino acid sequence of the peptide.

Structural and functional analysis of myostatin-2 promoter alleles from the marine fish Sparus aurata: evidence for strong muscle-specific promoter activity and post-transcriptional regulation

Myostatin (MSTN) is a negative regulator of skeletal muscle growth. In contrast to mammals, fish possess at least two paralogs of MSTN: MSTN-1 and MSTN-2. In this study, we analyzed the structural-functional features of the four variants of Sparus aurata MSTN-2 5'-flanking region: saMSTN-2a, saMSTN-2as, saMSTN-2b and saMSTN-2c. In silico analysis revealed numerous putative cis regulatory elements including several E-boxes known as binding sites to myogenic transcription factors. Transient transfection experiments using non-muscle and muscle cell lines showed surprisingly high transcriptional activity in muscle cells, suggesting the presence of regulatory elements unique to differentiated myotubes. These observations were confirmed by in situ intramuscular injections of promoter DNA followed by reporter gene assays. Moreover, high promoter activity was found in differentiated neural cell, in agreement with MSTN-2 expression in brain. Progressive 5'-deletion analysis, using reporter gene assays, showed that the core promoter is located within the first -127 bp upstream of the ATG, and suggested the presence of regulatory elements that either repress or induce transcriptional activity. Transient transgenic zebrafish provided evidence for saMSTN-2 promoter ability to direct GFP expression to myofibers. Finally, our data shows that although no mature saMSTN-2 mRNA is observed in muscle; unspliced forms accumulate, confirming high level of transcription. In conclusion, our study shows for the first time that MSTN-2 promoter is a very robust promoter, especially in muscle cells.

Myostatin inhibits proliferation but not differentiation of trout myoblasts

The muscle growth in mammals is regulated by several growth factors including myostatin (MSTN), a member of the transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) superfamily. To date, it is unknown in fish whether MSTN could have any effect on proliferation or differentiation of myogenic cells. Using culture of trout satellite cells, we showed that mstn1a and mstn1b mRNA are expressed in myoblasts and that their expression decreased in differentiating myoblasts. We also demonstrated that a treatment with huMSTN decreased the proliferation of IGF1-stimulated myoblasts in a dose-dependent manner. By contrast, treatment of myoblasts with 100 nM of huMSTN for three days, did not affect the percentage of positive cells for myogenin neither the percentage of nuclei in myosin positive cells. Moreover, our results clearly indicated that huMSTN treatment had no effect on MyoD and myogenin protein levels, which suggests that huMSTN did not strongly affect MyoD activity. In conclusion, we showed that huMSTN inhibited proliferation but not differentiation of trout myoblasts, probably resulting from a lack of huMSTN effect on MyoD activity. Altogether, these results show high interspecies differences in the function of MSTN.

Injection of duck recombinant follistatin fusion protein into duck muscle tissues stimulates satellite cell proliferation and muscle fiber hypertrophy

Follistatin (FST) can inhibit the expression of myostatin, which is a predominant inhibitor of muscle development. The potential application of myostatin-based technology has been prompted in different ways in agriculture. We previously constructed an expression vector of duck FST and isolated the FST fusion protein. After the protein was purified and refolded, it was added to the medium of duck myoblasts cultured in vitro. The results show that the 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide value of the myoblasts in the duck FST treatment group is higher than that in the control group, which indicates that the duck FST fusion protein exhibits the biological activities that can accelerate myoblast proliferation. To further investigate the roles of duck FST on muscle development, we injected the protein into the duck muscle tissues in vivo. The results show that both the duck muscle fiber cross-sectional area and the satellite cell activation frequency are influenced more in the FST treatment group than they are in the control group. In addition to these phenomena, expression of MyoD and Myf5 were increased, and the expression of myostatin was decreased. Together, these results suggest the potential for using duck FST fusion protein to inhibit myostatin activity and subsequently to enhance muscle growth in vivo. The mechanism by which FST regulates muscle development in the duck is similar to that in mammals and fishes.

The C313Y Piedmontese mutation decreases myostatin covalent dimerisation and stability

Background

Myostatin is a key negative regulator of muscle growth and development, whose activity has important implications for the treatment of muscle wastage disorders. Piedmontese cattle display a double-muscled phenotype associated with the expression of C313Y mutant myostatin. In vivo, C313Y myostatin is proteolytically processed, exported and circulated extracellularly but fails to correctly regulate muscle growth. The C313Y mutation removes the C313-containing disulphide bond, an integral part of the characteristic TGF-β cystine-knot structural motif.

Results

Here we present in vitro analysis of the structure and stability of the C313Y myostatin protein that reveals significantly decreased covalent dimerisation for C313Y myostatin accompanied by a loss of structural stability compared to wild type. The C313Y myostatin growth factor, processed from full length precursor protein, fails to inhibit C2C12 myoblast proliferation in contrast to wild type myostatin. Although structural modeling shows the substitution of tyrosine causes structural perturbation, biochemical analysis of additional disulphide mutants, C313A and C374A, indicates that an intact cystine-knot motif is a major determinant in myostatin growth factor stability and covalent dimerisation.

Conclusions

This research shows that the cystine-knot structure is important for myostatin dimerisation and stability, and that disruption of this structural motif perturbs myostatin signaling.

Extracellular Regulation of Myostatin: A Molecular Rheostat for Muscle Mass

Myostatin (MSTN) is a transforming growth factor-ß family member that plays a critical role in regulating skeletal muscle mass. Genetic studies in multiple species have demonstrated that mutations in the Mstn gene lead to dramatic and widespread increases in muscle mass as a result of a combination of increased fiber numbers and increased fiber sizes. MSTN inhibitors have also been shown to cause significant increases in muscle growth when administered to adult mice. As a result, there has been an extensive effort to understand the mechanisms underlying MSTN regulation and activity with the goal of developing the most effective strategies for targeting this signaling pathway for clinical applications. Here, I review the current state of knowledge regarding the regulation of MSTN extracellularly by binding proteins and discuss the implications of these findings both with respect to the fundamental physiological role that MSTN plays in regulating tissue homeostasis and with respect to the development of therapeutic agents to combat muscle loss.

Cytotoxic aggregation and amyloid formation by the myostatin precursor protein

Myostatin, a negative regulator of muscle growth, has been implicated in sporadic inclusion body myositis (sIBM). sIBM is the most common age-related muscle-wastage disease with a pathogenesis similar to that of amyloid disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Myostatin precursor protein (MstnPP) has been shown to associate with large molecular weight filamentous inclusions containing the Alzheimer's amyloid beta peptide in sIBM tissue, and MstnPP is upregulated following ER stress. The mechanism for how MstnPP contributes to disease pathogenesis is unknown. Here, we show for the first time that MstnPP is capable of forming amyloid fibrils in vitro. When MstnPP-containing Escherichia coli inclusion bodies are refolded and purified, a proportion of MstnPP spontaneously misfolds into amyloid-like aggregates as characterised by electron microscopy and binding of the amyloid-specific dye thioflavin T. When subjected to a slightly acidic pH and elevated temperature, the aggregates form straight and unbranched amyloid fibrils 15 nm in diameter and also exhibit higher order amyloid structures. Circular dichroism spectroscopy reveals that the amyloid fibrils are dominated by beta-sheet and that their formation occurs via a conformational change that occurs at a physiologically relevant temperature. Importantly, MstnPP aggregates and protofibrils have a negative effect on the viability of myoblasts. These novel results show that the myostatin precursor protein is capable of forming amyloid structures in vitro with implications for a role in sIBM pathogenesis.

Molecular cloning and characterization of follistatin in the gilthead sea bream, Sparus aurata

Follistatin (FST) is an activin-binding protein that neutralizes the activity of activin. FST also binds other members of the transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) superfamily, including myostatin (MSTN). We report herein on the isolation and characterization of a full-length cDNA sequence predicted to encode FST in a marine fish, the gilthead sea bream Sparus aurata. The deduced amino acid sequence of sea bream FST (saFST) is highly conserved to the counterpart sequences in other vertebrates and contains the N-terminal domain and three FST domains. The deduced mature saFST shows 81-86% identity with FSTs from other vertebrates. It is 290 amino acids long, similar to other fish FSTs and the short isoform of Xenopus FST but longer by two residues than mammalian FST288. Ontogeny of MSTN (a TGF-beta superfamily member and a negative growth regulator of skeletal muscle in mammals), and FST (known to bind MSTN) gene expression revealed the presence of both transcripts throughout larval development. However, a different expression pattern was found in earlier developmental stages; while MSTN could not be detected prior to the day of hatching, FST transcript was detected in embryos 12 h post-fertilization, confirming its role during vertebrate embryonic development. Both FST and MSTN were expressed in many adult tissues, with variable levels of expression, including muscle. Recombinant saFST inhibited saMSTN activity in a reporter gene assay, indicating a similar effect to that reported in mammals.

Real-time polymerase chain reaction, in situ hybridization and immunohistochemical localization of insulin-like growth factor-I and myostatin during development of Dicentrarchus labrax (Pisces: Osteichthyes)

The distribution of insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) and myostatin (MSTN) was investigated in sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR), in situ hybridization (ISH) and immunohistochemistry. Real-time PCR indicated that IGF-I mRNA increased from the second day post-hatching and that this trend became significant from day 4. ISH confirmed a strong IGF-I mRNA expression from the first week post-hatching, with the most abundant expression being detected in the liver of larvae and adults. Real-time PCR also showed that the level of MSTN mRNA increased significantly from day 25. The expression of MSTN mRNA was higher in muscle and almost absent in other anatomical regions in both larvae and adults. Interestingly, the lateral muscle showed a quantitative differential expression of IGF-I and MSTN mRNAs in red and white muscle, depending on the developmental stage examined. IGF-I immunoreactivity was detected in developing intestine at hatching and in skeletal muscle, skin and yolk sac. MSTN immunostaining was evident in several tissues and organs in both larvae and adults. Both IGF-I and MSTN proteins were detected in the liver from day 4 post-hatching and, subsequently, in the kidney and heart muscle from day 10. Our results suggest, on the basis of a combined methodological approach, that IGF-I and MSTN are involved in the regulation of somatic growth in the sea bass.