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Plant Physiol. (1999) 120: 773-778 Heavy-Metal Regulation of Thioredoxin Gene Expression in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii
Institut de Biotechnologie des Plantes, Únite Mixte de Recherche 8618, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université Paris-Sud, Bâtiment 630, 91405 Orsay cedex, France (S.L., E.K., M.S., I.S., E.I.-B., C.G.-H., M.M.-M.); and Laboratoire de Biologie Forestière, Université de Nancy I, BP239, 54506 Vandoeuvre, France (J.P.J.)
Heavy metals are highly toxic compounds for cells. In this report we demonstrate that the expression of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii thioredoxins (TRX) m and h is induced by heavy metals. Upon exposure of the cells to Cd and Hg, a strong accumulation of both messengers was observed. Western-blot experiments revealed that among these two TRXs, only TRX h polypeptides accumulated in response to the toxic cations. A biochemical analysis indicated that heavy metals inhibit TRX activity, presumably by binding at the level of their active site. Sequence analysis of the C. reinhardtii TRX h promoter revealed the presence of cis-acting elements related to cadmium induction. The origins and purposes of this regulation are discussed. Our data suggest, for the first time to our knowledge, a possible implication of TRXs in defense mechanisms against heavy metals.
Cells have developed defense mechanisms against heavy
metals, which are highly toxic compounds. In animals and fungi small Cys-rich proteins called metallothioneins are induced by heavy metals
(Thiele, 1992 TRXs are small ubiquitous proteins (approximately 12 kD) found in many
organisms from bacteria to humans. They are characterized by the highly
reactive disulfide of their conserved Cys-X-X-Cys active site
(Holmgren, 1985 In the past few years we have isolated several proteins related
to the Fd/TRX system in the unicellular green alga
Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. The isolated proteins
included Fd (Schmitter et al., 1988 We report here the detailed analysis of TRX m and TRX
h expression in C. reinhardtii, in response to
heavy metals. The effects of Cd and Hg have been analyzed at the mRNA
and protein levels. We demonstrate that the expression of both genes is
regulated by heavy metals at the mRNA level but with distinct kinetics. An increase in protein level was only observed for TRX h. A biochemical analysis of the interaction of TRXs with heavy metals indicates that
these cations inactivate TRXs, presumably by binding to their active
site. Our data suggest, for the first time to our knowledge, a
possible implication of TRXs in defense mechanisms against heavy metals
in photosynthetic organisms.
Strain and Culture Conditions
RNA Isolation Approximately 30 million cells were collected for each extraction and pelleted by centrifugation (3,000g, 5 min). The pellet was immediately resuspended in 1 mL of TRIzol reagent (GIBCO-BRL). Polysaccharides, membranes, and unlysed cells were eliminated by centrifugation (12,000g, 10 min, 4°C). At this step the supernatant was either stored at 80°C or immediately treated
following the manufacturer's protocol. The dried RNA pellet was
resuspended in 20 µL of milliQ-treated (Millipore) sterile water.
Northern Analysis Total RNA was separated on a 1.5% agarose gel containing formaldehyde and blotted onto a positive membrane (Appligene, Illkirch, France) by capillarity in 2× SSC (1× SSC is 0.15 M NaCl and 0.015 M sodium citrate). RNA was covalently fixed onto the membrane by UV-cross linking (UV Stratalinker 1800, Stratagene). The probes were synthesized by random priming (Nonaprimer kit II, Appligene). The constitutive probe is a fragment of the coding region of a G-protein -subunit-like polypeptide (Schloss, 1990 -untranslated region of the TRX h and m
isoforms (Stein et al., 1995b -GGGCAACGGCTTCGTGCTGACC-3 and 5 -TTGCAGGTCACCACGGCCATGC-3 ; TRX
m, 5 -GCCGGCGGGAGTGGGGTTCCCCG-3 and
5 -GCACCCGCCGACAGCTCCGGACG-3 ; and TRX h,
5 -GCAGGGGAGTCAGCAGCTGCGGG-3 and
5 -CCACTCGCAGCAGCACACCTCCTG-3 .
Heavy-Metal and Oxidative Stress Treatments For heavy-metal treatments the culture was separated into three bottles and transferred to continuous darkness 5 h before the addition of heavy metals. The cultures were supplemented with sterile water (control) or HgCl2 or CdCl2 at final concentrations of 1 µM and 100 µM, respectively. These concentrations correspond to the sublethal dose for each cation. The oxidative stress treatments were performed with cultures supplemented with either H2O2 or diamide at final concentrations of 1 to 2 mM and 5 to 50 µM, respectively.Protein Extraction and Western Analysis Total protein was prepared by resuspension of a pellet of 30 million cells in extraction buffer (30 mM Tris-HCl, pH 7.5, and 100 µM PMSF) followed by two rounds of freezing in liquid N2. The extracts were centrifuged at 12,000g for 15 min, and the protein concentration of the supernatant was determined by the Bradford dye-binding assay (Bio-Rad).Biochemical Analysis Expression and purification of TRX m and TRX h were performed as described previously by Stein et al. (1995b)
Both TRX Messengers Are Induced by Heavy Metals To avoid interference with the light-dependent induction of Fd and TRX gene expression (Lemaire et al., 1999), the heavy-metal treatments were performed on cultures maintained in darkness. The effects of Cd and Hg on the steady-state mRNA levels of Fd, TRX m, and TRX h have been analyzed by northern analysis (Fig. 1). The constitutive probe PCF allowed us to visualize and quantify loading variations. No significant variations in the three messenger levels were observed in the control experiment (data not shown). On the contrary, a strong increase in the level of both TRX messengers was observed when the cells were exposed to Hg or Cd cations (Fig. 1, A and C). The accumulation was more rapid for TRX h mRNA levels, which started increasing within 1 h after the addition of the heavy metal, than for TRX m mRNA levels, which increased after 2 h of treatment. Higher induction levels were observed with Hg (6-fold, Fig. 1B) than with Cd (4-fold, Fig. 1D). TRX h mRNA levels decreased after 3 to 4 h following addition of the heavy metal, whereas TRX m RNA levels showed no significant decrease after 6 h. Fd mRNA levels remained constant throughout the experiment. This point is particularly interesting since Fd and TRX m proteins are involved in the same redox pathway. Moreover, these three messengers are also regulated by light and the circadian clock (Lemaire et al., 1999), whereas heavy metals only induce TRX m and TRX h. These observations indicate that the effect of heavy metals is specific for TRX genes.
The Effect on Protein Levels Is Different for Both TRXs We have further analyzed the effects of heavy metals to check if the mRNA accumulation was followed by an increase in the corresponding protein levels. The western blots performed with polyclonal antibodies specific for the h or m isoform on extracts from control or heavy-metal-treated cells are presented on Figure 2A. A single band corresponding to each TRX was detected. No cross-hybridization was observed using as much as 1 µg of pure TRX (data not shown). The control experiment indicates that the protein levels remained constant in the absence of heavy metal. Upon exposure of cells to Hg, TRX h levels increased within 5 to 10 h after treatment. A more discrete effect of Cd could also be observed. Surprisingly, no increase in TRX m protein level could be observed after heavy-metal treatment. Quantification of protein levels has been performed with a series of three independent western blots (Fig. 2B). The absence of variation for the control experiment was confirmed and indicated that loading variations were relatively limited. TRX m levels did not appear to increase, whereas TRX h levels increased within 5 to 10 h. As previously observed at the mRNA level, Hg induction (2.5-fold) was higher than Cd induction (1.7-fold). Again, the two TRX isoforms appear to be regulated differently.
Oxidative Stress Does Not Affect the Expression The stress induced by heavy metals might be related to an oxidative stress. Heavy metals are known to induce oxidation of amino acids and proteins (Stadtman, 1993
Effect of Heavy Metals on TRX Activity in Vitro Heavy metals are known to bind dithiols with high affinity (Vallee and Ulmer, 1972
In this work we have provided evidence that the expression of TRX
h and TRX m is regulated by heavy metals in
C. reinhardtii. This regulation can be either direct or
indirect. Heavy metals can participate in a metal-catalyzed Fenton-type
reaction with superoxide or peroxide molecules to generate highly toxic
hydroxyl radicals (Stadtman, 1993
Received January 21, 1999;
accepted April 11, 1999.
Abbreviations:
NADP-MDH, NADP-malate dehydrogenase.
TRX, thioredoxin.
The authors would like to thank Dr. Karen L. Kindle for the gift
of the cDNA encoding the constitutive probe. We also thank Anne
Trouabal for excellent technical assistance.
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