Microbial Biotechnology (MB) | Protein Structure, Function, and Engineering
Microbiol. Biotechnol. Lett. 2023; 51(2): 167-173
https://doi.org/10.48022/mbl.2205.05002
Alexander A. Osmolovskiy1,2*, Elena S. Zvonareva2, Nina A. Baranova1, and Valeriana G. Kreyer1
1Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow 119234, Russian Federation
2Higher School of Economics - National Research University, Moscow 109028, Russian Federation
Correspondence to :
Alexander Osmolovskiy, aosmol@mail.ru
Proteolytic enzymes secreted by Aspergillus, as pathogenicity factors, affect blood coagulation and fibrinolysis, and therefore the target proteins of their action in the bloodstream are of significant interest. In the present study, the action of the isolated protease of A. terreus 2 on different human plasma proteins was shown. The protease of A. terreus 2 exhibited the highest proteolytic activity against hemoglobin, which was 2.5 times higher than the albuminolytic activity shown in both of the protein substrates used. In addition, the protease has significant ability to hydrolyze both fibrin and fibrinogen. However, the inability of the A. terreus 2 protease to coagulate rabbit blood plasma and coagulate human and bovine fibrinogen indicates the severity of the enzyme's action on human blood coagulation factors. It should be considered as a potential indicator of this isolated protease's participation in fungal pathogenesis. The protease shows no hemolytic activity. Furthermore, its activity is insignificantly inhibited by thrombin inhibitors, and is not inhibited by plasmin inhibitors.
Keywords: Aspergillus terreus, fibrinolytic enzymes, thrombolytic activity, hemostatically-active proteases
Extracellular proteases of microscopic fungi are currently among the most intensively studied enzymes. Of particular interest is a possible application of these enzymes as components of agents for treatment, prevention and diagnosis of thromboembolic complications in biomedicine [1−4]. Despite the variety of their properties, such as substrate specificity, optimal pH and temperature parameters, some proteases of
Alkaline exoproteases of
Micromycete
The hypothesis of the study was to determine the ability of the protease of
In this work, we carried out studies aimed at the coagulation of fibrinogen and plasma in humans and some animals by extracellular protease
Strain of
For proteolytic potential determination the micromycete was cultivated on Petri dishes with Skim milk agar (SMA), Blood agar (BA) and Plasma agar (PA). As basal components of media BA and PA contained following substances (in %): tryptone - 0.7; peptone - 1.0; yeast autolysate - 0.5; NaCl - 0.5; Na2CO3 - 0.03; agar - 2.0, pH 7.0−7.4, and additionally 8% sheep blood or 5% lyophilized sheep plasma (Sigma-Aldrich, USA), respectively. The composition of SMA was as follows (in %): skim milk powder (Sigma-Aldrich) - 5.0; agar - 3.0, pH 6.0−6.5. Inoculation was performed by injecting into the center of each medium in a Petri dish. After 5 days at 24, 28 and 37℃ of incubation, hydrolysis of substrates around the colonies was visualized.
For protease production the micromycete was cultivated under submerged conditions at 28℃ and 200 ×
The preparation of extracellular protease of
Proteins were determined by the Bradford protein assay [20] by mixing 950 μl of the Coomassie Brilliant Blue G-250 reagent and 50 μl of the sample. After that A595 was recorded.
1% (w/v) suspensions of Hammerstein’s casein (Sigma- Aldrich), human serum albumin (Sigma-Aldrich), bovine serum albumin (Sigma-Aldrich) and horse hemoglobin (Reanal, Hungary) were used for proteolytic assays. The activities of isolated protease were determined by Anson-Hagihara’s modified method [21]. 200 μl of the sample and 400 μl of suspension of the corresponding protein substrate (in 0.1 M Tris-HCl buffer (pH 8.2)) were used for the reaction. The mixtures were incubated 10 min at 37℃ with permanent shaking (600 rpm). The reaction was stopped using 600 μl of 10% trichloroacetic acid. Then samples were centrifugated (12000 ×
Zymography was carrying out preparing fresh fibrin suspension in 12% polyacrilamide gel by mixing 0,12% (w/v) fibrinogen and 100 μl of thrombin (10 IU) [22, 23]. Electrophoresis was going on in non-reducing (without mercaptoethanol) conditions at 25 mA on ice bath at 4℃. After that, the gel was gently stirred in 2.5% (v/v) Triton X-100, preparing on 50 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.0, for 30 min at 25℃, washed for 30 min in distilled water and incubated for 18 h at 37℃ in zymogram reaction buffer (0.02% (w/v) NaN3 based on 30 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.0). The gel was stained with Coomassie blue R-250 standard solution (2 h) and washed 3 times with 7% (v/v) acetic acid. Clear bands were detected as fibrin hydrolysis areas.
For study coagulation of blood plasma by isolated protease 0.4% (w/v) solutions of human and bovine fibrinogen (Sigma-Aldrich) and non-diluted and diluted in 2 times human and rabbit plasma (Renam, Russia) were used. For 100 μl of the protease of
On the isolated protease of the micromycete (0.25 mg/ ml), the effect of natural inhibitors of proteins of the hemostasis system was studied. Hirudin (1.5 mg/ml, Sigma-Aldrich, USA) was used as a thrombin inhibitor, because it slows down or completely stops the activation of thrombin by coagulation factors V, VIII, XIII; heparin (5.3 mg/ml, Renam) - as an inhibitor of thrombin and coagulation factors IXa, Xa, XIa, XIIa; ε-aminocaproic acid (1.3 mg/ml, Roth, Germany), as an inhibitor of plasmin and tissue plasminogen activator; sodium ascorbate (1.75 mg/ml, Roth) - as an inhibitor of blood coagulation.
The residual activity was determined with the chromogenic peptide substrate Chromozyme TH (Chromogenix, Italy) after 1.5 h of preincubation of the enzyme and inhibitor at room temperature and was expressed as a percentage of control one (reaction without inhibitor). 200 μl of a sample were mixed with 50 μl of corresponding inhibitor solution for the reaction. After exposition 100 μl of 0.05% solution of the Chromozyme TH in 0.05 M Tris-HCl buffer, pH 8.2, was added and incubated with shaking (600 rpm) for 5 min at 37℃. After that, the reaction was stopped by adding 200 μl of 50% acetic acid [5].
TS-100 thermoshaker (“BioSan”, Latvia) was used for all types of reactions. The optical densities of the solutions were measured with Eppendorf kinetics spectrophotometer (Eppendorf, Germany).
The experiments were carried out in triplicate, with the error not exceeding 5−7%. The data were statistically processed using MS Excel 2019 and Statistica 7.0. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare the data. Differences were considered statistically significant at
The optimal temperatures for the secretion of proteases by micromycete
Among the three temperatures at which the study was carried out (24, 28, and 37℃), the minimum of the growth was registered at 24℃, but it was approximately the same for every media. Fig. 1 shows the colonies of the micromycete on the indicated media. It can be observed, that the culture produces extracellular proteases (SMA) and does not exhibit hemolytic activity (BA). Visual hydrolysis of PA was also not detected.
The consumption of media components during the growth and development of micromycetes, secreting proteases effective against proteins of the hemostasis system, is an important indicator of presence of such activity. In addition to the already established, of particular interest is the ability to coagulate proteins of the hemostasis system, and proteolysis of albumin, fibrin and hemoglobin. Therefore, the next stage of the study was to isolate the protease of
The producer’s protease was isolated by isoelectric focusing, and its purity was proven electrophoretically (data not shown). Fibrin zymography (Fig. 2) also confirmed the presence of one protease of
An investigation of the hemoglobinolytic and albuminolytic activities of the protease showed that it is capable of hydrolyzing both substrates to varying degrees. The obtained results are shown in Table 1. The protease of
Table 1 . Albuminolytic and hemoglobinolytic activity of extracellular protease of
Protease | Albuminolysis, UTyr/mg | Hemoglobinolysis, UTyr/mg | |
---|---|---|---|
Human albumin | Bovine albumin | ||
344.3 | 526.7 | 1139.4 |
Study of the protease activities concerning coagulation components are the clotting tests of blood plasma and fibrinogen. The protease activity was tested using both animal and human proteins (Table 2). As presented in the table, the protease of
Table 2 . Plasma and fibrinogen coagulation by protease of
Sample | Human plasma | Rabbit plasma | Human fibrinogen | Bovine fibrinogen | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Normal | Diluted in 2 times | Normal | Diluted in 2 times | |||
+ | + | - | - | - | - | |
Thrombin (control) | + | + | + | + | + | + |
At the next stage we also analyzed the inhibition of
The data obtained in this study for
This ability distinguishes
Along with activating properties for the proteins of the hemostasis system via limited proteolysis, fungal proteases also exhibit proteolytic activity against blood proteins. In several cases, when it is necessary to identify targeting proteases, concomitant proteolytic activity can interfere; therefore, it is necessary to assess its level with suitable protein substrates - key globular and fibrillar proteins of the hemostasis system.
The study investigated that protease of
It is noteworthy that the activity of protease is insignificantly inhibited by thrombin inhibitors and is not inhibited by plasmin inhibitors. That confirms its activity against blood coagulation factors.
Similar properties of proteases of other aspergilli, studied earlier -
The data obtained serve as the basis for further studies of the biochemical and physicochemical properties of the isolated
The use of proteolytic enzymes of microscopic fungi in medical practice is possible in two directions: as part of thrombolytic drugs and as components of diagnostic kits as activators of blood plasma proenzymes. The activity of proteases in relation to different substrates and the severity of this activity to certain proteins of the hemostasis system determines the scope of their application. High fibrinolytic and fibrinogenolytic activity and accompanying albuminolysis and hemoglobinolysis, the ability to cause hemolysis, and sensitivity to plasma inhibitors limit the therapeutic effect of such proteases. At the same time, this does not mean that such enzymes are unpromising; they may well find a worthy application for
It was shown, that the
This work was supported by the Financial Council for Grants of the President of the Russian Federation No. SP-3906.2021.4.
The authors have no financial conflicts of interest to declare.
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Microbiol. Biotechnol. Lett. 2020; 48(4): 439-446 https://doi.org/10.48022/mbl.2003.03008