Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:3.6.1.3 (ATPase)
 65,361 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Interaction of many infectious agents with eukaryotic host cells is known to cause activation of the ubiquitous transcription factor nuclear factor kappaB (NF-kappaB) (U. Siebenlist, G. Franzoso, and K. Brown, Annu. Rev. Cell Biol. 10:405-455, 1994). Recently, we reported a biphasic pattern of NF-kappaB activation in cultured human umbilical vein endothelial cells consequent to infection with Rickettsia rickettsii, an obligate intracellular gram-negative bacterium and the etiologic agent of Rocky Mountain spotted fever (L. A. Sporn, S. K. Sahni, N. B. Lerner, V. J. Marder, D. J. Silverman, L. C. Turpin, and A. L. Schwab, Infect. Immun. 65:2786-2791, 1997). In the present study, we describe activation of NF-kappaB in a cell-free system, accomplished by addition of partially purified R. rickettsii to endothelial cell cytoplasmic extracts. This activation was rapid, reaching maximal levels at 60 min, and was dependent on the number of R. rickettsii organisms added. Antibody supershift assays using monospecific antisera against NF-kappaB subunits (p50 and p65) confirmed the authenticity of the gel-shifted complexes and identified both p50-p50 homodimers and p50-p65 heterodimers as constituents of the activated NF-kappaB pool. Activation occurred independently of the presence of endothelial cell membranes and was not inhibited by removal of the endothelial cell proteasome. Lack of involvement of the proteasome was further confirmed in assays using the peptide-aldehyde proteasome inhibitor MG 132. Activation was not ATP dependent since no change in activation resulted from addition of an excess of the unhydrolyzable ATP analog ATPgammaS, supplementation with exogenous ATP, or hydrolysis of endogenous ATP with ATPase. Furthermore, Western blot analysis before and after in vitro activation failed to demonstrate phosphorylation of serine 32 or degradation of the cytoplasmic pool of IkappaB alpha. This lack of IkappaB alpha involvement was supported by the finding that R. rickettsii can induce NF-kappaB activation in cytoplasmic extracts prepared from T24 bladder carcinoma cells and human embryo fibroblasts stably transfected with a superrepressor phosphorylation mutant of IkappaB alpha, rendering NF-kappaB inactivatable by many known signals. Thus, evidence is provided for a potentially novel NF-kappaB activation pathway wherein R. rickettsii may interact with and activate host cell transcriptional machinery independently of the involvement of the proteasome or known signal transduction pathways.
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PMID:Proteasome-independent activation of nuclear factor kappaB in cytoplasmic extracts from human endothelial cells by Rickettsia rickettsii. 957 57

The molecular basis of protein secretion that underlines rickettsial pathogenesis remains unknown. This paper reports the molecular and functional analysis of the putative secA gene, an essential component of the Sec-dependent protein secretion pathway, from Rickettsia rickettsii and Rickettsia typhi, the aetiological agents of Rocky Mountain spotted fever and murine typhus, respectively. The sequence analysis of the cloned secA genes from R. rickettsii and R. typhi show ORFs of 2721 and 2718 nt, respectively. Alignment of the deduced amino acid sequences reveals the presence of highly conserved amino acid residues and motifs considered to be essential for the ATPase activity of SecA in preprotein translocation. Transcription analysis indicates that R. rickettsii secA is expressed monocistronically from the canonical prokaryotic promoter, with a transcriptional start point located 32 nt upstream of the secA initiation codon. Complementation analysis shows that the full-length SecA protein from R. rickettsii and R. typhi fails to restore growth of the temperature-sensitive Escherichia coli strain MM52 secA51(ts) at a non-permissive temperature (42 degrees C), despite the detection of SecA protein expression by Western blotting. However, the chimeric SecA protein carrying the N-terminal 408 aa of R. rickettsii SecA fused with the C-terminal 480 aa of E. coli SecA restores the growth of E. coli strain MM52 secA51(ts) at the non-permissive temperature (42 degrees C). These results suggest that the N-terminal ATPase domain is highly conserved, whereas the C-terminal domain appears to be species specific.
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PMID:Functional analysis of secA homologues from rickettsiae. 1569 7