Seung Hyun Yoo

Chromogranin B-induced Secretory Granule Biogenesis COMPARISON WITH THE SIMILAR ROLE OF CHROMOGRANIN A

The two major proteins of secretory granules of secretory cells, chromogranins A (CGA) and B (CGB), have previously been proposed to play key roles in secretory granule biogenesis. Recently, CGA was reported to play an on/off switch role for secretory granule biogenesis. In the present study we found CGB being more effective than CGA in inducing secretory granule formation in non-neuroendocrine NIH3T3 and COS-7 cells. The mean number of dense core granules formed/cell of CGA-transfected NIH3T3 cells was 2.51, whereas that of CGB-transfected cells was 4.02, indicating the formation of 60% more granules in the CGB-transfected cells. Similarly, there were 55% more dense core granules formed in the CGB-transfected COS-7 cells than in the CGA-transfected cells. Moreover, transfection of CGA- and CGB-short interfering RNA (siRNA) into neuroendocrine PC12 cells not only decreased the amount of CGA and CGB expressed but also reduced the number of secretory granules by 41 and 78%, respectively, further suggesting the importance of CGB expression in secretory granule formation.

Fluorescence studies of nucleotide interactions with bovine adrenal chromogranin A

The binding of the fluorescent probe bis-ANS to chromogranin A, the major protein of adrenal chromaffin vesicles, caused a marked enhancement and blue shift in the fluorescence emission spectrum. The emission maximum shifted from 515 nm to 480 nm and the yield increased approx. 75-fold upon addition of 10 microM chromogranin A to 1 microM bis-ANS. Adenine nucleotides had clear effects on the bis-ANS fluorescence signal, while other nucleotides such as GTP, UTP and CTP had no discernible effect. Specifically, ATP caused a decrease in the fluorescence, whereas ADP and AMP caused a fluorescence increase. These results indicate adenine nucleotide binding to chromogranin A. Substitution of ATP with epsilon-ATP, an ATP derivative with a modification on the six-membered ring of the adenine base, failed to reduce the fluorescence intensity. Therefore, it was concluded that adenine bases play an important role in the chromogranin A-adenine nucleotide interaction.