Identity elements in bovine tRNA(Trp) required for the specific stimulation of gelonin, a plant ribosome-inactivating protein

Novel therapeutics for chemotherapy-resistant acute myeloid leukaemia

Patients with chemotherapy-resistant acute myeloid leukaemia are rarely cured by non-allogeneic transplant therapies. Multiple new investigational agents have become available for treatment of these patients and there are few tools to permit rational drug and clinical trial selection. In this review, we describe the chemical and biological properties of some of these agents and some of their initial clinical activity to date. The selected agents react with either cell surface molecules or signal pathway intermediates and include antibody and antibody conjugates to CD33 and CD45, a fusion protein directed to the granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor receptor, an anti-sense oligonucleotide to Bcl2, a farnesyl transferase inhibitor, and a protein kinase C agonist/inhibitor. The challenge for the next decade will be how to select patients for particular molecularly targeted therapeutics and how to combine these agents.

Ribosome-inactivating proteins from plants: more than RNA N-glycosidases?

Many plants contain proteins that are capable of inactivating ribosomes and accordingly are called ribosome-inactivating proteins or RIPs. These typical plant proteins receive a lot of attention in biological and biomedical research because of their unique biological activities toward animal and human cells. In addition, evidence is accumulating that some RIPs play a role in plant defense and hence can be exploited in plant protection. To understand the mode of action of RIPs and to optimize their medical and therapeutical applications and their use as antiviral compounds in plant protection, intensive efforts have been made to unravel the enzymatic activities of RIPs and provide a structural basis for these activities. Though marked progress has been made during the last decade, the enzymatic activity of RIPs has become a controversial issue because of the concept that RIPs possess, in addition to their classical RNA N-glycosidase and polynucleotide:adenosine glycosidase activity, other unrelated enzymatic activities. Moreover, the presumed novel enzymatic activities, especially those related to diverse nuclease activities, are believed to play an important role in various biological activities of RIPs. However, both the novel enzymatic activities and their presumed involvement in the biological activities of RIPs have been questioned because there is evidence that the activities observed are due to contaminating enzymes. We offer a critical review of the pros and cons of the putative novel enzymatic activities of RIPs. Based on the available data, it is suggested that there is little conclusive evidence in support of the presumed activities and that in the past too little attention has been given to the purity of the RIP preparation. The antiviral activity and mode of action of RIPs in plants are discussed in view of their classical and presumed novel enzymatic activities.

RIBOSOME-INACTIVATING PROTEINS: A Plant Perspective

Ribosome-inactivating proteins (RIPs) are toxic N-glycosidases that depurinate the universally conserved alpha-sarcin loop of large rRNAs. This depurination inactivates the ribosome, thereby blocking its further participation in protein synthesis. RIPs are widely distributed among different plant genera and within a variety of different tissues. Recent work has shown that enzymatic activity of at least some RIPs is not limited to site-specific action on the large rRNAs of ribosomes but extends to depurination and even nucleic acid scission of other targets. Characterization of the physiological effects of RIPs on mammalian cells has implicated apoptotic pathways. For plants, RIPs have been linked to defense by antiviral, antifungal, and insecticidal properties demonstrated in vitro and in transgenic plants. How these effects are brought about, however, remains unresolved. At the least, these results, together with others summarized here, point to a complex biological role. With genetic, genomic, molecular, and structural tools now available for integrating different experimental approaches, we should further our understanding of these multifunctional proteins and their physiological functions in plants.

Nucleotides U28-A42 and A37 in unmodified yeast tRNA(Trp) as negative identity elements for bovine tryptophanyl-tRNA synthetase

Wild-type bovine and yeast tRNA(Trp) are efficiently aminoacylated by tryptophanyl-tRNA synthetase both from beef and from yeast. Upon loss of modified bases in the synthetic transcripts, mammalian tRNA(Trp) retains the double recognition by the two synthetases, while yeast tRNA(Trp) loses its substrate properties for the bovine enzyme and is recognised only by the cognate synthetase. By testing chimeric bovine-yeast transcripts with tryptophanyl-tRNA synthetase purified from beef pancreas, the nucleotides responsible for the loss of charging of the synthetic yeast transcript have been localised in the anticodon arm. A complete loss of charging akin to that observed with the yeast transcript requires substitution in the bovine backbone of G37 in the anticodon loop with yeast A37 and of C28-G42 in the anticodon stem with yeast U28-A42. Since A37 does not prevent aminoacylation of the wild-type yeast tRNA(Trp) by the beef enzyme, a negative combination apparently emerges in the synthetic transcript after unmasking of U28 by loss of pseudourydilation.

Non-specific depurination activity of saporin-S6, a ribosome-inactivating protein, under acidic conditions

Among five ribosome-inactivating proteins tested only saporin-S6 could efficiently release the adenine from adenosine 20 of the synthetic oligoribonucleotide (SRD RNA) mimic of the sarcin/ricin domain of rat 28S rRNA with a Km of 9 microM and a kcat of approximately 0.4 min(-1) at pH 7.6. The optimal pH for the depurination activity of saporin-S6 is 5.0. However, saporin-S6 lost its site-specificity of depurination on SRD RNA around the optimal pH. The non-specific depurination activity of saporin-S6 was dependent on the enzyme concentration and pH conditions. These results are valuable to understand the diversity and the depurination mechanism of ribosome-inactivating proteins.