Association studies of erythroid alpha-spectrin at the tetramerization site

Novel compound heterozygous mutations in the SPTA1 gene, causing hereditary spherocytosis in a neonate with Coombs‑negative hemolytic jaundice

Hereditary spherocytosis (HS) is a common heterogeneous type of inherited hemolytic anemia characterized by jaundice and splenomegaly. Diagnosis of HS in neonates is considered unreliable, and is generally based on positive family history, spherocytes in peripheral smears, increased osmotic fragility, and jaundice. In the present study, routine laboratory tests, next‑generation sequencing, and Sanger sequencing were applied to diagnose a neonatal patient with Coombs‑negative hemolytic jaundice. The neonate had no family history of HS; however, spherocytes were observed in peripheral smears, and the patient exhibited Coombs‑negative and severe hemolytic jaundice, normal mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC) and mean corpuscular volume (MCV), normal glucose‑6‑phosphate dehydrogenase activity, negative thalassemia genetic mutation screening results, and negative autoimmune antibody tests. Novel compound heterozygous mutations in the spectrin‑α, erythrocytic 1 (SPTA1) gene (c.3897‑1G>C and c.5029G>A) were identified. The SPTA1 c.3897‑1G>C mutation in intron 27‑1, which disrupted the consensus splice site, was inherited from his asymptomatic mother, and the SPTA1 c.5029G>A (p.Gly1677Arg) mutation in trans with the SPTA1 c.3897‑1G>C mutation was inherited from his asymptomatic father. Sanger sequencing of mRNA reverse transcribed into cDNA identified a deletion of the first 10 nucleotides of exon 28, confirming the splicing mutation. In conclusion, the present study reports a rare case of autosomal‑recessive HS with a severe clinical phenotype, but normal MCHC and MCV.

Slow, reversible, coupled folding and binding of the spectrin tetramerization domain

Many intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) are significantly unstructured under physiological conditions. A number of these IDPs have been shown to undergo coupled folding and binding reactions whereby they can gain structure upon association with an appropriate partner protein. In general, these systems display weaker binding affinities than do systems with association between completely structured domains, with micromolar K(d) values appearing typical. One such system is the association between α- and β-spectrin, where two partially structured, incomplete domains associate to form a fully structured, three-helix bundle, the spectrin tetramerization domain. Here, we use this model system to demonstrate a method for fitting association and dissociation kinetic traces where, using typical biophysical concentrations, the association reactions are expected to be highly reversible. We elucidate the unusually slow, two-state kinetics of spectrin assembly in solution. The advantages of studying kinetics in this regime include the potential for gaining equilibrium constants as well as rate constants, and for performing experiments with low protein concentrations. We suggest that this approach would be particularly appropriate for high-throughput mutational analysis of two-state reversible binding processes.

Yeast two-hybrid and itc studies of alpha and beta spectrin interaction at the tetramerization site

Yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) and isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) methods were used to further study the mutational effect of non-erythroid alpha spectrin (αII) at position 22 in tetramer formation with beta spectrin (βII). Four mutants, αII-V22D, V22F, V22M and V22W, were studied. For the Y2H system, we used plasmids pGBKT7, consisting of the cDNA of the first 359 residues at the N-terminal region of αII, and pGADT7, consisting of the cDNA of residues 1697–2145 at the C-terminal region of βII. Strain AH109 yeast cells were used for colony growth assays and strain Y187 was used for β-galactosidase activity assays. Y2H results showed that the C-terminal region of βII interacts with the N-terminal region of αII, either the wild type, or those with V22F, V22M or V22W mutations. The V22D mutant did not interact with βII. For ITC studies, we used recombinant proteins of the αII N-terminal fragment and of the erythroid beta spectrin (βI) C-terminal fragment; results showed that the K_d values for V22F were similar to those for the wild-type (about 7 nM), whereas the K_d values were about 35 nM for V22M and about 90 nM for V22W. We were not able to detect any binding for V22D with ITC methods. This study clearly demonstrates that the single mutation at position 22 of αII, a region critical to the function of nonerythroid α spectrin, may lead to a reduced level of spectrin tetramers and abnormal spectrin-based membrane skeleton. These abnormalities could cause abnormal neural activities in cells.

Apparent structural differences at the tetramerization region of erythroid and nonerythroid beta spectrin as discriminated by phage displayed scFvs

We have screened a human immunoglobulin single-chain variable fragment (scFv) phage library against the C-terminal tetramerization regions of erythroid and nonerythroid beta spectrin (βI-C1 and βII-C1, respectively) to explore the structural uniqueness of erythroid and nonerythroid β-spectrin isoforms. We have identified interacting scFvs, with clones "G5" and "A2" binding only to βI-C1, and clone "F11" binding only to βII-C1. The K(d) values, estimated by competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, of these scFvs with their target spectrin proteins were 0.1-0.3 μM. A more quantitative K(d) value from isothermal titration calorimetry experiments with the recombinant G5 and βI-C1 was 0.15 μM. The α-spectrin fragments (model proteins), αI-N1 and αII-N1, competed with the βI-C1, or βII-C1, binding scFvs, with inhibitory concentration (IC(50) ) values of ∼50 μM for αI-N1, and ∼0.5 μM for αII-N1. Our predicted structures of βI-C1 and βII-C1 suggest that the Helix B' of the C-terminal partial domain of βI differs from that of βII. Consequently, an unstructured region downstream of Helix B' in βI may interact specifically with the unstructured, complementarity determining region H1 of G5 or A2 scFv. The corresponding region in βII was helical, and βII did not bind G5 scFv. Our results suggest that it is possible for cellular proteins to differentially associate with the C-termini of different β-spectrin isoforms to regulate α- and β-spectrin association to form functional spectrin tetramers, and may sort β-spectrin isoforms to their specific cellular localizations.

Crystal structure of the nonerythroid alpha-spectrin tetramerization site reveals differences between erythroid and nonerythroid spectrin tetramer formation

We have solved the crystal structure of a segment of nonerythroid alpha-spectrin (alphaII) consisting of the first 147 residues to a resolution of 2.3 A. We find that the structure of this segment is generally similar to a corresponding segment from erythroid alpha-spectrin (alphaI) but exhibits unique differences with functional significance. Specific features include the following: (i) an irregular and frayed first helix (Helix C'); (ii) a helical conformation in the junction region connecting Helix C' with the first structural domain (D1); (iii) a long A(1)B(1) loop in D1; and (iv) specific inter-helix hydrogen bonds/salt bridges that stabilize D1. Our findings suggest that the hydrogen bond networks contribute to structural domain stability, and thus rigidity, in alphaII, and the lack of such hydrogen bond networks in alphaI leads to flexibility in alphaI. We have previously shown the junction region connecting Helix C' to D1 to be unstructured in alphaI (Park, S., Caffrey, M. S., Johnson, M. E., and Fung, L. W. (2003) J. Biol. Chem. 278, 21837-21844) and now find it to be helical in alphaII, an important difference for alpha-spectrin association with beta-spectrin in forming tetramers. Homology modeling and molecular dynamics simulation studies of the structure of the tetramerization site, a triple helical bundle of partial domain helices, show that mutations in alpha-spectrin will affect Helix C' structural flexibility and/or the junction region conformation and may alter the equilibrium between spectrin dimers and tetramers in cells. Mutations leading to reduced levels of functional tetramers in cells may potentially lead to abnormal neuronal functions.