Ubiquitin Urine Levels in Burn Patients

Use of Extracellular Monomeric Ubiquitin as a Therapeutic Option for Major Depressive Disorder

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a mood disorder that has become a global health emergency according to the World Health Organization (WHO). It affects 280 million people worldwide and is a leading cause of disability and financial loss. Patients with MDD present immunoendocrine alterations like cortisol resistance and inflammation, which are associated with alterations in neurotransmitter metabolism. There are currently numerous therapeutic options for patients with MDD; however, some studies suggest a high rate of therapeutic failure. There are multiple hypotheses explaining the pathophysiological mechanisms of MDD, in which several systems are involved, including the neuroendocrine and immune systems. In recent years, inflammation has become an important target for the development of new therapeutic options. Extracellular monomeric ubiquitin (emUb) is a molecule that has been shown to have immunomodulatory properties through several mechanisms including cholinergic modulation and the generation of regulatory T cells. In this perspective article, we highlight the influence of the inflammatory response in MDD. In addition, we review and discuss the evidence for the use of emUb contained in Transferon as a concomitant treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).

Almost 50 Years of Monomeric Extracellular Ubiquitin (eUb)

Monomeric ubiquitin (Ub) is a 76-amino-acid highly conserved protein found in eukaryotes. The biological activity of Ub first described in the 1970s was extracellular, but it quickly gained relevance due to its intracellular role, i.e., post-translational modification of intracellular proteins (ubiquitination) that regulate numerous eukaryotic cellular processes. In the following years, the extracellular role of Ub was relegated to the background, until a correlation between higher survival rate and increased serum Ub concentrations in patients with sepsis and burns was observed. Although the mechanism of action (MoA) of extracellular ubiquitin (eUb) is not yet well understood, further studies have shown that it may ameliorate the inflammatory response in tissue injury and multiple sclerosis diseases. These observations, compounded with the high stability and low immunogenicity of eUb due to its high conservation in eukaryotes, have made this small protein a relevant candidate for biotherapeutic development. Here, we review the in vitro and in vivo effects of eUb on immunologic, cardiovascular, and nervous systems, and discuss the potential MoAs of eUb as an anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and cardio- and brain-protective agent.

Sensitive ELISA-based detection method for the mitophagy marker p-S65-Ub in human cells, autopsy brain, and blood samples

Mitochondrial dysfunction is an early, imminent event in neurodegenerative disorders including Parkinson disease (PD) and Alzheimer disease (AD). The enzymatic pair PINK1 and PRKN/Parkin recognize and transiently label damaged mitochondria with ubiquitin (Ub) phosphorylated at Ser65 (p-S65-Ub) as a signal for degradation via the autophagy-lysosome system (mitophagy). Despite its discovery in cell culture several years ago, robust and quantitative detection of altered mitophagy in vivo has remained challenging. Here we developed a sandwich ELISA targeting p-S65-Ub with the goal to assess mitophagy levels in mouse brain and in human clinical and pathological samples. We characterized five total Ub and four p-S65-Ub antibodies by several techniques and found significant differences in their ability to recognize phosphorylated Ub. The most sensitive antibody pair detected recombinant p-S65-Ub chains in the femtomolar to low picomolar range depending on the poly-Ub chain linkage. Importantly, this ELISA was able to assess very low baseline mitophagy levels in unstressed human cells and in brains from wild-type and prkn knockout mice as well as elevated p-S65-Ub levels in autopsied frontal cortex from AD patients vs. control cases. Moreover, the assay allowed detection of p-S65-Ub in blood plasma and was able to discriminate between PINK1 mutation carriers and controls. In summary, we developed a robust and sensitive tool to measure mitophagy levels in cells, tissue, and body fluids. Our data strongly support the idea that the stress-activated PINK1-PRKN mitophagy pathway is constitutively active in mice and humans under unstimulated, physiological and elevated in diseased, pathological conditions.Abbreviations: Ab: antibody; AD: Alzheimer disease; AP: alkaline phosphatase; CV: coefficient of variation; ECL: electrochemiluminescence; KO: knockout; LoB: Limit of Blank; LoD: Limit of Detection; LoQ: Limit of Quantification; MSD: meso scale discovery; PD: Parkinson disease; p-S65-PRKN: phosphorylated PRKN at serine 65; p-S65-Ub: phosphorylated ubiquitin at serine 65; Std.Dev.: standard deviation; Ub: ubiquitin; WT: wild type.