239+240Pu and 137Cs concentrations for zooplankton and nekton in the Northwest Pacific and Antarctic Oceans (1993-1996)

The concentrations of 239+240Pu and 137Cs in zooplankton and nekton in the Northwest Pacific and Southern Oceans were measured during the period 1993-1996. The object of the sampling was to assess the potential impacts of existing submerged anthropogenic-radioactive materials in the western North Pacific as well as the East China Sea. Samples from the Bransfield Strait of the Antarctic Ocean provided a control source impacted by only atmospheric bomb fallout. No particularly elevated levels of 239+240Pu were found in zooplankton samples from the Northwest Pacific, although significantly lower levels of 239+240Pu were found in three mixed zooplankton samples from the Bransfield Strait. The body burden of 239+240Pu in zooplankton appears to reflect concentrations in ambient seawater with some variation. Some additional measurements of 137Cs in fish are also reported here to complement existing databases and for future reference in the regional marine environmental radioactivity monitoring effort.

Conservative amino acid substitutions of the C-terminal tripeptide (Ala-Arg-Met) on cottonseed isocitrate lyase preserve import in vivo into mammalian cell peroxisomes

The purpose of this research was twofold, a) to directly demonstrate import in vivo of a native plant peroxisomal protein into peroxisomes of transiently transfected mammalian cells, and b) to identify the targeting signal and amino acid substitutions thereof which preserve translocation of this plant protein into these peroxisomes. The protein selected for study was cottonseed isocitrate lyase (ICL), a glyoxylate cycle enzyme which participates in storage oil mobilization in oilseed cotyledons. Cultured mammalian cells were selected as the import system because of previous success by others with transient transfections and import of heterologous (not plant, however) proteins, and because neither a plant in vitro or transient in vivo import system was established. Optimized transient transfections of cultured CV-1 monkey kidney, mouse L, HeLa, and CHO cells resulted in punctate, anticottonseed-ICL-dependent immunofluorescent patterns. Colocalization in a CVH Px110 cell line of ICL with either endogenous catalase or with stably expressed CAT-PMP20/AKL (chloramphenicol acetyltransferase with a C-terminal-appended 12 amino acids ending with Ala-Lys-Leu) demonstrated targeting of ICL to peroxisomes. Direct evidence for translocation of ICL into CHO cell peroxisomes was obtained from digitonin permeabilization experiments. The necessity of the C-terminal tetrapeptide, KARM-COOH, was demonstrated in CHO and CV-1 cells when removal of this tetrapetide (leaving ICL-VVA-COOH) abolished import into peroxisomes. This result is in general agreement with Olsen et al. (The Plant Cell 5, 941-952 (1993)) who demonstrated that the 37 C-terminal amino acids of oilseed rape ICL were necessary for import in vivo in transgenic plants. The findings of Behari and Baker (J. Biol. Chem. 268, 7315-7322 (1993)), however, indicate that the C-terminal portion of castor bean ICL is dispensible for import in vitro. Single or multiple conservative amino acid substitutions at each position of the C-terminal tripeptide of native cottonseed ICL (S for A, K for R, L for M, SK for AR, SKL for ARM) preserved import of the enzyme in vivo into CHO cell peroxisomes. The demonstrated targeting and translocation of plant ICL and C-terminal modifications thereof into mammalian cell peroxisomes provide important additional evidence for evolutionary conservation of peroxisome import machinery, especially relative to the PTS1 sequence.

Characterization of a cDNA clone encoding the complete amino acid sequence of cotton isocitrate lyase

A cDNA clone encoding the glyoxysomal enzyme isocitrate lyase (ICL) (EC 4.1.3.1) was isolated from a library prepared from cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) cotyledon poly(A)+ RNA. The clone is 1893 basepairs (bp) in length and contains a 1728 bp open reading frame encoding a polypeptide of 576 residues (Mr = 64,741). The deduced amino acid sequence of cotton ICL is 85.2%, 90.3% and 41.1% identical to ICL from rapeseed, castor bean and E. coli, respectively. Cotton ICL has a C-terminal tripeptide of A-R-M which is a putative trafficking signal for peroxisome (glyoxysome) proteins.