Toshihiro Houdai

Acetate labeling patterns of dinoflagellate polyketides, amphidinols 2, 3 and 4

Abstract Amphidinols, which are polyketide metabolites chiefly comprising a long linear chain with polyhydroxyl groups and polyolefins, are produced by marine dinoflagellates Amphidinium carterae and A. klebsii. The acetate incorporation experiments of amphidinols 2, 3 and 4 revealed that they are built up with five regular C2-elongation sequences, which are separated by continuous acetate-methyl derived carbons. The findings support the C1-deletion mechanism from the regular sequence, which could be accounted for either by Favorski-type reaction or by Tiffeneau–Demjanov rearrengement.

Structure of membrane-bound amphidinol 3 in isotropic small bicelles.

Amphidinol 3 (AM3) exhibits a potent membrane permeabilizing activity by forming pores in biological membranes. We examined the conformation and location of AM3 using isotropic bicelles, a more natural membrane model than micelles. The results show that AM3 takes turn structures at the two tetrahydropyran rings. Most of the hydrophilic region of the molecule is predominantly present in the surface, while the hydrophobic polyolefin penetrates in the bicelle interior.

Effects of lipid constituents on membrane-permeabilizing activity of amphidinols

Amphidinols (AMs) are a new class of polyhydroxyl polyene compounds with potent antifungal activity. Membrane-permeabilizing activities of AM2, AM3, and AM6 were examined using fluorescent-dye leakage experiments with various phosphatidylcholines (PCs) and sterols. All the AMs tested showed the potent activity to cholesterol-containing liposomes. In the absence of the sterol, AM2, AM3, and AM6 had no membrane-permeabilizing activities to membranes of saturated PC. In liposomes consisting of unsaturated PC, AM2, which possesses an additional ether ring in a polyhydroxyl chain, showed membrane-permeabilizing activities with a moderate efficacy, while AM3 or AM6 did not. The potentiation by sterols was prominent even at 0.5% (wt/wt) and structure-dependent, which ruled out the possibility that alteration of the membrane physical properties induced by sterol was chiefly responsible for this sterol effect. The finding that their activity was not affected by membrane thickness implies that AMs permeabilized membrane by a different mechanism from that of polyene macrolide antibiotics.

Roles of integral protein in membrane permeabilization by amphidinols

Amphidinols (AMs) are a group of dinoflagellate metabolites with potent antifungal activity. As is the case with polyene macrolide antibiotics, the mode of action of AMs is accounted for by direct interaction with lipid bilayers, which leads to formation of pores or lesions in biomembranes. However, it was revealed that AMs induce hemolysis with significantly lower concentrations than those necessary to permeabilize artificial liposomes, suggesting that a certain factor(s) in erythrocyte membrane potentiates AM activity. Glycophorin A (GpA), a major erythrocyte protein, was chosen as a model protein to investigate interaction between peptides and AMs such as AM2, AM3 and AM6 by using SDS-PAGE, surface plasmon resonance, and fluorescent-dye leakages from GpA-reconstituted liposomes. The results unambiguously demonstrated that AMs have an affinity to the transmembrane domain of GpA, and their membrane-permeabilizing activity is significantly potentiated by GpA. Surface plasmon resonance experiments revealed that their interaction has a dissociation constant of the order of 10 microM, which is significantly larger than efficacious concentrations of hemolysis by AMs. These results imply that the potentiation action by GpA or membrane integral peptides may be due to a higher affinity of AMs to protein-containing membranes than that to pure lipid bilayers.