The association of actin with a thyroid lysosomal fraction

Solubilization and characterization of a thyroid Ca(2+)-dependent and NADPH-dependent K3Fe(CN)6 reductase. Relationship with the NADPH-dependent H2O2-generating system

The thyroid plasma membrane contains a Ca(2+)-regulated NADPH-dependent H2O2-generating system which provides H2O2 for the thyroid-peroxidase-catalyzed biosynthesis of thyroid hormones. The molecular nature of the membrane-associated electron transport chain that generates H2O2 in the thyroid is unknown, but recent observations indicate that a flavoprotein containing a FAD prosthetic group is involved. Solubilization was reinvestigated using 3-[(3-cholamidopropyl)dimethylammonio]-1-propanesulfonate (Chaps), Triton X-100, and high salt concentrations. Chaps eliminated about 30% of the proteins, which included a ferricyanide reductase, without affecting the H2O2-generating system. Similarly, Triton X-100 alone did not extract the NADPH oxidase. An NADPH-oxidase activity, which was measured in the presence of the artificial electron acceptor potassium ferricyanide, was solubilized by increasing the ionic strength to 2 M KCl. This NADPH-ferricyanide reductase activity was shown to belong to the H2O2-generating system, although it did not produce H2O2. It was still Ca2+ dependent and H2O2 production was restored by decreasing the ionic strength by overnight dialysis. No H2O2 production activity was detected after sucrose density gradient centrifugation of the dialyzed solubilized enzyme, but a well-defined peak of NADPH oxidation activity with a sedimentation coefficient of 3.71 S was found in the presence of K3Fe(CN)6. These results suggest that some unknown component(s) (phospholipid or protein) is removed during sucrose density gradient centrifugation. Finally, thyrotropin, which induces NADPH oxidase and regulates H2O2 production in porcine thyrocytes in primary culture, also induced the NADPH-K3Fe(CN)6 reductase activity associated with the H2O2-generating system. Thus, this enzyme seems to be another marker of thyroid differentiation.

Hormones and the cytoskeleton of animals and plants

It is often overlooked that a cell can exert its specific functions only after it has acquired a specific morphology: function follows form. The cytoskeleton plays an important role in establishing this form, and a variety of hormones can influence it. The cytoskeletal framework has also been shown to function in a variety of cellular processes, such as cell motility (important for behavior), migration (important for the interrelationship between the endocrine and immune systems, e.g., chemotaxis), intracellular transport of particles, mitosis and meiosis, maintenance of cellular morphology, spatial distribution of cell organelles (e.g., nucleus and Golgi system), cellular responses to membrane events (e.g., endocytosis and exocytosis), intracellular communication including conductance of electrical signals, localization of mRNA, protein synthesis, and--more specifically in plants--ordered cell wall deposition, cytoplasmic streaming, and spindle function followed by phragmoplast function. All classes of hormones seem to make use of the cytoskeleton, either during their synthesis, transport, secretion, degradation, or when influencing their target cells. In this review special attention is paid to cytoskeleton-mediated effects of selected hormones related to growth, transepithelial transport, steroidogenesis, thyroid and parathyroid functioning, motility, oocyte maturation, and cell elongation in plants.

Phalloidin-induced accumulation of myosin in rat hepatocytes is caused by suppression of autolysosome formation

Administration of phalloidin in vivo to rats causes marked changes in the distribution of actin and myosin in hepatocytes, which accompanies reduced bile flow. We have found that in hepatocytes treated with phalloidin for 3 and 7 days, cellular myosin content increased about 1.5-fold and 4.7-fold, respectively. In addition, total cell protein content and several marker enzyme activities were also elevated by 30-120% depending on the duration of phalloidin treatment. These observations allow us to speculate that phalloidin somehow elicits inhibition of cellular protein degradation, which results in the increase of these protein levels. To examine this possibility further, we analyzed leupeptin-induced density shift of phagolysosomes. In normal liver, the injection of leupeptin/E64c caused an increase in the density of both heterolysosomes and autolysosomes, due to retarded digestion of sequestered proteins as a result of the inhibition of lysosomal cathepsins. Accumulation, in these denser autolysosomes, of lactic dehydrogenase, pyruvate kinase, aldolase, and myosin was demonstrated by enzyme assays and immunoblot analysis. In the phalloidin-treated liver, the increase in the density of autolysosomes and the accumulation of above cytoplasmic enzymes were markedly inhibited. However, phalloidin did not affect the shift in the density of heterolysosomes. From these data, we concluded that autolysosome formation was specifically hindered in phalloidin-treated rat hepatocytes, which results in the reduction of autophagic protein degradation and eventual increase in intracellular protein levels.

The regulation and integration of thyroid follicular differentiation and function

As in a number of other endocrine tissues in which expression of differentiated function is dependent upon a stable cellular architecture, the control of differentiation of the thyroid follicle requires a coordination between the ultrastructural and morphological responses to a number of endocrine growth factors, which may ultimately involve autocrine or paracrine-mediated effects within the immediate follicular microenvironment. Through analogy with other cell types, expression of appropriate differentiation characteristics within the thyroid follicle may involve the activation of specific c-oncogenes within each of the component cells. With the recent development and application of oncogene transfection technology, application of such procedures to the thyroid follicular cell should prove to be a particularly fruitful area for future research within the thyroid gland, leading to elucidation of the mechanisms whereby the cellular responses to growth and tissue-differentiating factors are mediated. Clearly however, further consideration must also be made of the roles played in maintaining follicular stability by both physical and chemical interactions between the component cells and the immediate extracellular environment. The contributory roles played by basement membrane and cell-surface components in cellular recognition, together with the physical effects imposed upon the apical surfaces of the follicle by luminal thyroglobulin have already been identified as fundamental factors in this respect. It is also readily apparent that morphological differentiation of the follicle bears critically upon the chemical characteristics of the microenvironment through the ability of the latter to promote expression of specific apical/basal recognition characteristics of the component cells, and thus maintain the unidirectional polarity upon which the functional capacity of the thyroid follicle is so critically-dependent.

Enzymatic characterization of arginine esterase from dog seminal plasma

Previously purified arginine esterase from dog seminal plasma was characterized enzymatically. The enzyme was found to have a rather narrow specificity for arginine esters, much less for lysine esters and was practically devoid of activity towards tyrosine esters, casein, albumin and azocoll. It had a broad optimum pH between 8 and 9. It presented no kallikrein-like activities either in the blood pressure test in dog or in the rat uterus contraction test. It was inhibited by bovine pancreas trypsin inhibitor, aprotinin, phenylalanylprolyl arginine chloromethyl ketone, diisopropylfluorophosphate, phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride, sodium dodecyl sulfate and leupeptin, but not by soybean trypsin inhibitor, tosyllysine chloromethyl ketone, tosylamide-2-phenylethyl chloromethyl ketone, iodoacetamide, Triton X-100 and EDTA. Experiments involving incubation of prostatic cytosol with purified arginine esterase showed that actin was the only important prostatic protein that was extensively hydrolyzed by this enzyme. It is not known presently whether the hydrolysis of actin is related to a true physiological function of the enzyme and whether actin and arginine esterase ever come into contact with each other in vivo. These properties indicate that arginine esterase from dog seminal plasma is different from other known proteinases including classical kallikreins, although it presents many similarities with this class of enzyme.

Interaction of rat liver lysosomal membranes with actin

Membranes were prepared from lysosomes purified 80-fold by centrifugation in a discontinuous metrizamide gradient. When salt-washed membranes were combined with rabbit muscle actin, an increase in viscosity could be measured using a falling ball viscometer. The lysosomal membrane-actin interaction was actin- and membrane-concentration dependent and appeared to be optimal under presumed physiological conditions (2 mM MgCl2, 1 mM MgATP, neutral pH, and free calcium concentration less than 10(-8) M). The actin cross-linking activity of the membrane was optimal at pH 6.4. The interaction was maximal between 10(-7) and 10(-9) M free calcium ions and inhibited by approximately 50% at concentrations of calcium greater than 0.5 x 10(-7) M. The actin-lysosomal membrane interaction was destroyed if the membranes were pretreated with Pronase, or if the membranes were purified in the absence of protease inhibitors. The interaction was not destroyed if membranes were washed with high salt or extracted with KCl and urea. In addition, a sedimentation assay for the actin-lysosomal membrane interaction was also performed to corroborate the viscometry data. The results suggest the existence of an integral lysosomal membrane actin-binding protein.

Isolation and characterization of hog thyroid actin

When the thyroglobulin content is subtracted, actin represents approximately 4.6% of the total protein content in the hog thyroid gland. Actin has been isolated from acetone-dehydrated slices and purified to homogeneity by gel filtration, DEAE-cellulose chromatography and two polymerization-depolymerization cycles. Purified actin (Mr = 42000) contains the beta and gamma species with a 2 to 1 stoichiometry. In the presence of 0.1 M KCl and 2 mM MgCl2 thyroid actin polymerized into 6 nm diameter filaments; under these conditions the critical concentration was 30 micrograms/ml and the intrinsic viscosity 4.7 dl/g.

Isolation from thyroid cells or purified plasma membranes with associated actin microfilaments. Proteins bound to actin

Plasma membranes of thyroid cells were purified from hog thyroid glands following two procedures. Their homogeneity was tested by electron microscopy and by measurements of the activity of membrane-bound enzyme markers. According to the procedure used the membrane fractions obtained present some differences in their morphological features as well as in the repartition of the activities of the membrane-bound enzyme markers. However, whatever the composition of the membrane fraction examined (membrane vesicles, single membrane sheets with junctional complexes), decoration with heavy meromyosin clearly shows the presence of actin filaments attached to these fragments. Analysis of proteins by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis indicates the presence of about twelve major components with actin. Treatment of membranes with Triton X-100 results in an insoluble core which contains all the actin and most of the major proteins. The selective extraction of these components by buffers differing in their ionic strength, pH, or the presence or absence of ATP X Mg has been used to characterize some of the proteins associated to actin; among them are filamin, myosin, alpha-actinin, tropomyosin.

Actin in Triton-insoluble cytoskeleton of thyroid

Treatment of bovine thyroid with the non-ionic detergent Triton X-100 extracts most of the cell protein and leaves insoluble residue. This Triton-insoluble cytoskeleton consists of five major polypeptides on sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gels. One of these polypeptides is actin. Based on DNase inhibition assay, 30% of the total actin is associated with the cytoskeleton as the filamentous form. Thyroid actin from the cytoskeleton has been solubilized by dialysis against a low ionic strength buffer at pH 8.0 and purified to homogeneity by a polymerizing-depolymerizing cycle. The overall purification was about 144-fold with a yield of 10%. Bovine thyroid actin is very similar to actins from other tissues on the basis of: (1) comigration with rabbit skeletal muscle actin during gel electrophoresis in sodium dodecyl sulfate, (2) its amino acid composition, which includes about 1 mole of 3-methylhistidine per 42,000 g, (3) its ability to bind and inhibit pancreatic deoxyribonuclease I, and (4) its ability to form 7-8 nm microfilaments which is similar to that of skeletal filamentous actin. Thyroid actin contains beta- and gamma-isoactins, with isoelectric points more alkaline than the alpha-actin of rabbit skeletal muscle.