Structure-activity relationships in tryptophanyl transfer ribonucleic acid synthetase from beef pancreas. Influence of the alkylation of the sulfhydryl groups on the dimer-monomer equilibrium

Chaperon-like Activation of Serum-Inducible Tryptophanyl-tRNA Synthetase Phosphorylation through Refolding as a Tool for Analysis of Clinical Samples

Tryptophanyl-tRNA synthetase (TrpRS) expression alters in colorectal (CRC), pancreatic (PC), and cervical (CC) cancers. Here, phosphorylation of unfolded TrpRS and its fragments is stimulated by human cancer sera (CS; n = 13) and serum of rabbit tumor induced by Rous sarcoma virus, unaffected by donor sera (NS; 11/15) and abolished by alkaline phosphatase. At 20 years of follow-up, serum-inducible TrpRS phosphorylation found years before healthy donors (3/15) diagnosed with PC, CRC, or leukemia. I have examined a specificity of serum-inducible TrpRS phosphorylation and found, surprisingly, that serine phosphorylation of unfolded TrpRS is stimulated by anti-TrpRS rabbit antisera but is unaffected by rabbit nonimmune sera and antisera to other antigens. Anti-TrpRS immunoglobulin G (IgG) inhibits phosphorylation of full-length TrpRS and stimulates phosphorylation of its 20-kDa fragment. Phosphorylation of this fragment is stimulated also by CS but not NS. 2-Mercaptoethanol and cyclic AMP exerted synergistic inhibitory effect on TrpRS phosphorylation. Anti-TrpRS sera and casein act as chaperones increasing TrpRS phosphorylation through refolding. Histone-specific protein kinase activity in CS (n = 44) and anti-TrpRS sera was lower than that in NS (n = 11), rabbit nonimmune sera and antisera to other antigens. TrpRS inhibitors, tryptamine, and tryptophanol stimulate in vivo accumulation of enzymatically inactive, nonphosphorylated, aggregated and anti-TrpRS IgG refoldable TrpRS. Phosphorylation of postsurgical tissues (n = 18) reveals TrpRS in ovarian cancer (OVC) and CC but not in normal placenta and liver. In OVC, TrpRS phosphorylation increase correlates with elevated tryptophan-dependent ATP-inorganic pyrophosphate exchange. Although not inducing cancer, TrpRS triggers signaling concomitant with cancer.

Mapping and molecular characterization of novel monoclonal antibodies to conformational epitopes on NH2 and COOH termini of mammalian tryptophanyl-tRNA synthetase reveal link of the epitopes to aggregation and Alzheimer's disease

Tryptophanyl-tRNA synthetase (TrpRS) is an interferon-induced phosphoprotein with autoantigenic and cytokine activities detected in addition to its canonical function in tRNA aminoacylation. The availability of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) specific for TrpRS is important for development of tools for TrpRS monitoring. A molecular characterization of two mAbs raised in mice, using purified, enzymatically active bovine TrpRS as the inoculating antigen, is presented in this report. These IgG1 antibodies are specific for bovine, human and rabbit but not E. coli TrpRS. Immunoreactivity and specificity of mAbs were verified with purified recombinant hTrpRS expressed in E. coli and TrpRS-derived synthetic peptides. One of the mAbs, 9D7 is able to disaggregate fibrils formed by Ser32-Tyr50 TrpRS-peptide. Epitope mapping revealed that disaggregation ability correlates with binding of 9D7 to this peptide in ELISA and immunocytochemistry. This epitope covers a significant part of N-terminal extension that suggested to be proteolytically deleted in vivo from the full-length TrpRS whereas remaining COOH-fragment possesses a cytokine activity. For epitope mapping of mAb 6C10, the affinity selected phage-displayed peptides were used as a database for prediction of conformational discontinuous epitopes within hTrpRS crystal structure. Using computer algorithm, this epitope is attributed to COOH-terminal residues Asp409-Met425. In immunoblotting, the 6C10 mAb reacts preferably with (i) oligomer than monomer, and (ii) bound than free TrpRS forms. The hTrpRS expression was shown to correlate with growth rates of neuroblastoma and pancreatic cancer cells. Immunohistochemically both mAbs revealed extracellular plaque-like aggregates in hippocampus of Alzheimer's disease brain.