R Federico

The Glu216/Ser218 pocket is a major determinant of spermine oxidase substrate specificity

SMO (spermine oxidase) and APAO (acetylpolyamine oxidase) are flavoenzymes that play a critical role in the catabolism of polyamines. Polyamines are basic regulators of cell growth and proliferation and their homoeostasis is crucial for cell life since dysregulation of polyamine metabolism has been linked with cancer. In vertebrates SMO specifically catalyses the oxidation of spermine, whereas APAO displays a wider specificity, being able to oxidize both N¹-acetylspermine and N¹-acetylspermidine, but not spermine. The molecular bases of the different substrate specificity of these two enzymes have remained so far elusive. However, previous molecular modelling, site-directed mutagenesis and biochemical characterization studies of the SMO enzyme-substrate complex have identified Glu²¹⁶-Ser²¹⁸ as a putative active site hot spot responsible for SMO substrate specificity. On the basis of these analyses, the SMO double mutants E216L/S218A and E216T/S218A have been produced and characterized by CD spectroscopy and steady-state and rapid kinetics experiments. The results obtained demonstrate that mutation E216L/S218A endows SMO with N¹-acetylspermine oxidase activity, uncovering one of the structural determinants that confer the exquisite and exclusive substrate specificity of SMO for spermine. These results provide the theoretical bases for the design of specific inhibitors either for SMO or APAO.

Stability of spermine oxidase to thermal and chemical denaturation: comparison with bovine serum amine oxidase.

Spermine oxidase (SMOX) is a flavin-containing enzyme that specifically oxidizes spermine to produce spermidine, 3-aminopropanaldehyde and hydrogen peroxide. While no crystal structure is available for any mammalian SMOX, X-ray crystallography showed that the yeast Fms1 polyamine oxidase has a dimeric structure. Based on this scenario, we have investigated the quaternary structure of the SMOX protein by native gel electrophoresis, which revealed a composite gel band pattern, suggesting the formation of protein complexes. All high-order protein complexes are sensitive to reducing conditions, showing that disulfide bonds were responsible for protein complexes formation. The major gel band other than the SMOX monomer is the covalent SMOX homodimer, which was disassembled by increasing the reducing conditions, while being resistant to other denaturing conditions. Homodimeric and monomeric SMOXs are catalytically active, as revealed after gel staining for enzymatic activity. An engineered SMOX mutant deprived of all but two cysteine residues was prepared and characterized experimentally, resulting in a monomeric species. High-sensitivity differential scanning calorimetry of SMOX was compared with that of bovine serum amine oxidase, to analyse their thermal stability. Furthermore, enzymatic activity assays and fluorescence spectroscopy were used to gain insight into the unfolding process.

Two short protein domains are responsible for the nuclear localization of the mouse spermine oxidase mu isoform RID A-4573-2009

In mouse, at least two catalytically active splice variants (mSMOα and mSMOµ) of the flavin‐containing spermine oxidase enzyme are present. We have demonstrated previously that the cytosolic mSMOα is the major isoform, while the mSMOµ enzyme is present in both nuclear and cytoplasmic compartments and has an extra protein domain corresponding to the additional exon VIa. By amino acid sequence comparison and molecular modeling of mSMO proteins, we identified a second domain that is necessary for nuclear localization of the mSMOµ splice variant. A deletion mutant enzyme of this region was constructed to demonstrate its role in protein nuclear targeting by means of transient expression in the murine neuroblastoma cell line, N18TG2.