The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster GSTE6 and E7; characterization, immobilization and transgenic overexpression

Sammanfattning:

Glutathione transferases (GSTs) are multifunctional enzymes that are universally distributed in most eukaryotes and prokaryotes. They play a pivotal role in the metabolism and detoxication of numerous endogenous and exogenous electrophiles by conjugating them with ubiquitous tripeptide glutathione. In this study we have immobilized two heterologously expressed and purified Epsilon-class enzymes, GSTE6 and GSTE7, from of Drosophila melanogaster on nanoporous alumina membranes. The membranes were derivatized with 3-aminopropyl-triethoxysilane and the amino groups were activated with carbonyldiimidazole to allow coupling of the enzymes. Kinetic analyses of the immobilized enzymes were carried out in a circulating flow system using CDNB (1-chloro-2,4-dinitrobenzene) as substrate, followed by specificity screening with alternative substrates. A good correlation was observed between the substrate screening data for immobilized enzyme and corresponding data for the enzymes in solution. The stability of the immobilized enzymes was virtually identical to that for the enzymes in solution and no leakage of enzyme from the matrix could be observed.

Additionally, we have investigated the catalytic activities of GSTE7 with organic isothiocyanates (ITCs). These reactive compounds are strong electrophilic molecules produced in plants by the hydrolysis of glucosinolates and exert toxicity in biological tissues.  Our in vitro studies, showed high catalytic activity of GSTE7 towards ITCs. We have then explored the in vivo effect of phenethyl isothiocyanate (PEITC) and allyl isothiocyanate (AITC) in transgenic fruit flies overexpressing GSTE7. A concentration of 0.25 mM PEITC in standard fly food was shown to be toxic to flies and significantly shortened the lifespan. We noticed that overexpression of GSTE7 could protect females from the initial acute toxic effects, but had no positive effect on long term exposure. The effect on males seems to be the opposite to that of females, where a higher mortality was seen in fly males overexpressing GST E7 after one week of exposure.  On the other hand 1mM concentration of AITC showed no toxic effects, but dramatically reduced the oviposition activity of wild-type flies in comparison to the transgenic flies.