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Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 1439 (1999) 415^423 www.elsevier.com/locate/bba Short sequence-paper Rat sn-glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase: molecular cloning and characterization of the cDNA and expressed protein B. Ganesh Bhat 1 , Ping Wang, Ji-Hyeon Kim, Tracy M. Black, Tal M. Lewin, Frederick T. Fiedorek Jr. 2 , Rosalind A. Coleman * Departments of Nutrition, Pediatrics, and Medicine, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill NC 27599-7400, USA Received 29 March 1999; received in revised form 21 May 1999; accepted 2 June 1999 Abstract Rat mitochondrial glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase (GPAT) cDNA was cloned and characterized. We identified a cDNA containing an open reading frame of 828 amino acids that had an 89% homology with the coding region of the previously characterized mouse mitochondrial GPAT and a predicted amino acid sequence that was 96% identical. The rat 5P UTR was only 159 nucleotides, in contrast to the 926 nucleotide 5P UTR of the mouse cDNA and had an internal deletion of 167 nucleotides. GPAT was expressed in Sf21 insect cells, and specific inhibitors strongly suggest that, like the Escherichia coli GPAT, the recombinant mitochondrial GPAT and the mitochondrial GPAT isoform in rat liver contain critical serine, histidine, and arginine residues. ß 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase; Diacylglycerol metabolism; Glycerolipid synthesis; Triacylglycerol Mammalian glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase (GPAT1 ) catalyzes the acylation of sn-glycerol-3phosphate to form 1-acyl-sn-glycerol-3-phosphate, thereby providing the committed step for the formation of glycerolipids [1,2]. Regulation of GPAT may Abbreviations: BSA, bovine serum albumin; DTT, dithiothreitol; EDTA, ethylenedinitrilo-tetraacetic acid; GPAT, glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase; NEM, N-ethylmaleimide; PCR, polymerase chain reaction; RACE, rapid ampli¢cation of cDNA ends; SDS, sodium dodecylsulfate; UTR, untranslated region * Corresponding author. Department of Nutrition, CB# 7400, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7400, USA. Fax: +1-919-966-7216. 1 Current address: Monsanto Company 44B, 800 N. Lindbergh Ave., St. Louis, MO 63167, USA. 2 Current address: Metabolic Diseases Clinical Research, Glaxo-Wellcome Inc., RTP, NC 27709, USA. be critical during metabolic transitions between fasting and refeeding and in the development of complex metabolic disorders such as obesity, diabetes mellitus, and atherosclerosis. Understanding the regulation of GPAT is complicated by the existence of two GPAT isoenzymes, one located in the outer mitochondrial membrane and the other in the endoplasmic reticulum [2]. These isoenzymes can be distinguished by their resistance (mitochondrial) or sensitivity (microsomal) to NEM inhibition [1]. Mitochondrial GPAT was cloned from mouse liver [3] and identi¢ed by a 40% similarity to a 300 amino acid stretch of E. coli GPAT [4]. The mouse cDNA was expressed in Sf9 cells and puri¢ed, but was enzymatically inactive until reconstituted with crude soybean phosphatidylcholine [5]. Mitochondrial GPAT from rat liver has been puri¢ed [6] and was partially cloned (GenBank accession numbers 1388-1981 / 99 / $ ^ see front matter ß 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 1 3 8 8 - 1 9 8 1 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 1 0 3 - 1 BBAMCB 50418 5-8-99 416 B. Ganesh Bhat et al. / Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 1439 (1999) 415^423 Fig. 1. Nucleotide sequence and predicted amino acid sequence of rat mitochondrial cDNA. The 5P UTR and coding region shown were sequenced in both directions. The asterisk denotes the stop site for translation, and the v indicates a 167 nucleotide deletion of a sequence reported in mouse GPAT cDNA. Underlined portions indicate primers described in the text and the orientation of the primers is shown as S (sense) or AS (antisense). The GenBank accession number is AF021348. U36771, U36772, U36773). A sequence for rat mitochondrial GPAT cDNA has been published in a review article [7]. With in vitro assays, puri¢ed mitochondrial GPAT appears to prefer rated acyl-CoAs GPAT shows no hypothesized that BBAMCB 50418 5-8-99 saturated acyl-CoAs over unsatu[5,6], whereas the microsomal preference [2]; thus, it has been mitochondrial GPAT plays a crit- B. Ganesh Bhat et al. / Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 1439 (1999) 415^423 417 Fig. 1. (continued) ical role in esterifying saturated fatty acids at the sn-1 position of glycerolipids [2,8]. On the other hand, changes in GPAT activity under di¡erent physiologic conditions suggest that positioning of the sn-1-acyl group cannot be the only function of mitochondrial GPAT because both GPAT isoenzyme activities increase during adipocyte di¡erentiation [9], neonatal development [10] in mammary epithelial cells during lactation [11], and in di¡erent nutritional states [12,13]. BBAMCB 50418 5-8-99 418 B. Ganesh Bhat et al. / Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 1439 (1999) 415^423 Fig. 1. (continued) Acute regulation of GPAT, possibly by a phosphorylation/dephosphorylation mechanism, has also been reported in adipose tissue, liver [2] and muscle [14], although it has not been ascertained which GPAT isoform is regulated. More recently, a tyrosine kinase, which was partially puri¢ed from adipose cytosol, inactivated microsomal GPAT [15]. GPAT inactivation was prevented by treatment with tyrosine kinase inhibitors, and GPAT could be reactivated by treatment with liver phosphatase. Our recent studies show that mitochondrial GPAT, but not microsomal GPAT, is inactivated by AMP-activated kinase [16]. These studies strongly suggest that a phosphorylation/dephosphorylation mechanism regulates one or both GPAT activities. Information on mRNA expression is available Table 1 Acyltransferase homology blocksa Block I b E. coli Mouse Rat 303 VPCHRSHMDYLLL LPVHRSHIDYLLL LPVHRSHIDYLLL 227c Block II Block III Block IV 348 GAFFIRR GGFFIRR GGFFIRR 271 382 YFVEGGRSRTGR IFLEGTRSRSGK IFLEGTRSRSGK 312 417 ITLIPIYI ILVIPVGI ILVIPVGI 347 Amino acid alignment of four conserved regions of GPAT from E. coli, mouse, and rat. Residues shown by site-directed mutagenesis to be important for glycerol-3-phosphate binding and catalysis are in boldface type. E. coli GPAT residues H306, D309, F351, I352, and P421 are important for GPAT catalysis, whereas R354, E385, and S389 are important for glycerol-3-phosphate binding [21]. a Blocks of homology were identi¢ed based on amino acid alignments performed using the CLUSTAL algorithm. b Numbers indicate the amino acid residue at the beginning of each block in E. coli GPAT. c Numbers indicate the amino acid residue at the beginning of each block in rat GPAT. BBAMCB 50418 5-8-99 B. Ganesh Bhat et al. / Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 1439 (1999) 415^423 only for the mitochondrial isoenzyme. Cloning of mouse mitochondrial GPAT allowed investigators to show that mitochondrial GPAT mRNA transcription is induced during adipocyte di¡erentiation [12], by insulin treatment, in fasted mice refed a high carbohydrate diet [3], and by ADD1/SREBP [17]. Thus, there is clearly an elegant mechanism of transcriptional control. Both microsomal and mitochondrial GPAT activities change under a variety of hormonal, developmental and nutritional in£uences, however a number of important questions remain unanswered concerning the role of GPAT in glycerolipid biosynthesis. Do the two GPATs have di¡erent functions regarding their use of saturated vs. unsaturated fatty acyl-CoAs? Do they play speci¢c and independent roles in (1) regulating the £ux of acyl-CoAs towards glycerolipid synthesis or towards L-oxidation, (2) in the synthesis of mitochondrial vs. microsomal phospholipids, and (3) in the synthesis of triacylglycerol vs. phospholipid? How does the enzyme's position within its membrane location relate to acute regulation of activity? In order to facilitate such studies and to compare the mitochondrial GPAT with other cloned acyltransferases, we cloned, sequenced, and expressed mitochondrial GPAT cDNA from rat liver. Liver cDNA was prepared from 7 days old rats and used as the template for PCR screening with degenerate oligonucleotide primers homologous to putative rat monoacylglycerol acyltransferase. A 490 basepair length product was obtained and cloned into the pCR2.1 vector (Invitrogen) and sequenced by the UNC automated DNA sequencing facility. A sequence similarity search using the BLAST program at NCBI [18] revealed that the fragment had an 89% homology to mouse mitochondrial glycerol 3-phosphate acyltransferase (GenBank accession number M77003) at nucleotides 3090^3555. Additional oligonucleotide primers (indicated in Fig. 1) were generated using the known mouse GPAT sequence and used to amplify additional GPAT sequences from rat liver cDNA by PCR. Two fragments of 1.4 and 1.7 kb were obtained with primers 3S/1AS and 3S/2AS respectively. The two fragments were homologous to nucleotides 1711^3124 and 1711^3538 of the mouse GPAT cDNA sequence. The 1.7 kb fragment was digested 419 Fig. 2. Expression of recombinant GPAT in Sf21 insect cells. Cell lysates were electrophoresed in the presence of SDS on a 10% polyacrylamide gel and stained with Coomassie. Lane 1, uninfected Sf21 cells; lane 2, Sf21 membranes containing overexpressed L-galactosidase; lane 3, Sf21 cells containing overexpressed GPAT (94 kDa). with EcoRI to give two fragments of 0.8 and 0.9 kb. The 0.8 kb fragment, which contained DNA homologous to the coding region from the mouse GPAT cDNA sequence, was random prime labeled with [32 P]dCTP and used to probe a liver cDNA library prepared from 7 days old rats [19,20]. A 4.6 kb clone was isolated and sequenced from both ends. One end was found to have 89% homology to mouse GPAT starting at nucleotide 2036. The other end contained a poly(A) tail and was homologous to nucleotides 5931^6634 in the mouse GPAT 3P UTR. The 4.6 kb rat GPAT cDNA clone did not contain the start of the coding region. In order to obtain the 5P end of the rat GPAT cDNA, additional oligonucleotide primers were designed based on the mouse GPAT cDNA sequence. Only primers 9S/10AS (Fig. 1) resulted in successful PCR ampli¢cation from rat liver cDNA. The 9S/10AS PCR product was homologous to the mouse GPAT cDNA sequence encompassing nucleotides 1064^2085. Other primers designed to be homologous to nucleotides 1^20, 23^ BBAMCB 50418 5-8-99 420 B. Ganesh Bhat et al. / Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 1439 (1999) 415^423 Fig. 3. Inhibition of GPAT activity by DEPC and reversal with hydroxylamine. To isolate total particulate preparations, rat liver or Sf21 cells was homogenized with 10 up-and-down strokes with a Te£on-glass homogenizer in 0.25 M sucrose, 1 mM EDTA, 10 mM Tris-HCl, pH 7.4 and 1 mM DTT, then centrifuged at 100 000Ug for 1 h. To isolate microsomes, the homogenate was centrifuged at 15 000 rpm for 15 min at 4³C. The supernatant was centrifuged at 100 000Ug for 1 h at 4³C. The resulting total particulate or microsomal pellets were resuspended in the same bu¡er and frozen in aliquots at 380³C until use. Total particulate or microsomal membranes (40 Wg protein) were incubated with 300 WM (or 200 WM for recombinant GPAT) DEPC in acetonitrile (10% of the incubation volume) for 10 min at 23³C. Controls contained 10% acetonitrile alone. After 10 min 75 mM (or 200 mM for recombinant GPAT) hydroxylamine was added and samples were removed at intervals for assay of GPAT activity. GPAT activity was assayed using 75 mM Tris-HCl (pH 7.5), 1 mM DTT, 2 mg/ml BSA, 4 mM MgCl2 , 8 mM NaF, 300 WM [3 H]glycerol-3-P, and 112.5 WM palmitoylCoA in a total volume of 200 Wl [25] after a 15 min incubation on ice in the presence or absence of 1 mM NEM. Microsomal activity was calculated by subtracting the NEM-resistant activity from the total activity. [3 H]glycerol-3-phosphate was synthesized enzymatically [26]. Protein was measured using BSA as the standard [27]. A: GPAT activity in rat liver microsomes. B: GPAT activity after treatment of a rat liver total particulate preparation with 2 mM NEM on ice for 15 min to inhibit microsomal GPAT. C: Recombinant GPAT activity from Sf21 cells (infected for 3 days) after treatment of total particulate preparation with 2 mM NEM on ice for 10 min to inhibit endogenous microsomal GPAT. Control activities were 1.3, 0.4, and 3.2 nmol/min/mg protein for A, B, and C, respectively. 48, 188^208, or 558^581 in the 5P UTR of mouse GPAT did not yield any PCR ampli¢ed products using rat liver cDNA or total RNA as template. To obtain the 5P UTR and start site, rapid ampli¢cation of cDNA ends (RACE; Clontech) was performed using rat liver cDNA and a primer which annealed to both 8AS (Fig. 1) and the adapter sequence (Clontech). Sequencing of the RACE product revealed that the rat and mouse 5P UTRs di¡ered considerably. The mouse and rat 5P UTRs are 926 and 159 nucleotides, respectively, with the rat sequence lacking the ¢rst 607 nucleotides of the mouse BBAMCB 50418 5-8-99 B. Ganesh Bhat et al. / Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 1439 (1999) 415^423 5P UTR and having an internal deletion of an additional 167 nucleotides (Fig. 1). The presence of a 600 nucleotide shorter 5P UTR in rat GPAT is consistent with our inability to obtain PCR ampli¢ed products from rat liver cDNA using primers homologous to regions in the ¢rst 550 nucleotides of the mouse GPAT cDNA. The presence of the deletion was con¢rmed by sequencing the product obtained using 24S and 8AS primers in PCR ampli¢cation of rat liver cDNA. The 3P UTR was only partially sequenced but appeared to be about 84% homologous to the 3362 base mouse GPAT 3P UTR (data not shown). The nucleotide sequences of the open reading frames of rat and mouse mitochondrial GPAT are 89% homologous and the amino acid sequences are 96% identical. To verify that our cloned rat mitochondrial GPAT cDNA encoded a functional GPAT enzyme, we employed the baculovirus expression system (BacPAK, Clontech) to express our rat mitochondrial GPAT clone in Sf21 insect cells. Nucleotides 160^2646 encompassing the rat mitochondrial GPAT ORF were cloned into the pBacPAK8 vector (Clontech) following the polyhedrin promoter. Following infection of Sf21 insect cells with control and recombinant GPAT baculovirus for 3 days, NEM-resistant GPAT-specific activity measured in total particulate samples increased 24-fold from 0.08 nmol/min/mg in control samples to 1.93 nmol/min/mg in mitochondrial GPAT-containing samples. The intensity of the Coomassie-stained GPAT band at 94 kDa (Fig. 2, lane 3) indicates abundant overexpression of mitochondrial GPAT. The results obtained with inhibitors are in strong agreement with our observations with overexpressed E. coli GPAT [21]. Since comparison of the rat and mouse GPAT coding sequences with GPAT from E. coli reveals the presence of conserved sequences that are critical to glycerol-3-phosphate binding and catalysis in E. coli GPAT (Table 1) [21], we propose that these acyltransferases function using a similar catalytic mechanism. Through site-directed mutagenesis studies, we have shown that in E. coli GPAT, residues H306, D311, F351, I352, and P421 are important for GPAT catalysis, whereas R354, E385, and S389 are important for binding the glycerol-3phosphate substrate [21]. The inhibition data (see below) and the sequence homologies suggest that 421 Fig. 4. Inhibition of GPAT activity by phenylglyoxal. Membrane proteins (0.2 mg) were incubated in 200 Wl in the absence or presence of various concentrations of phenylglyoxal and then assayed for GPAT activity at di¡erent time points. Phenylglyoxal was added to the incubation mixture (125 mM sodium carbonate bu¡er, pH 7.5) to a ¢nal concentration of zero (E), 0.2 (b), 0.5 (7), 1 (R), or 2.5 mM (a). Data are presented as percent of activity in control (sodium carbonate bu¡er only) microsomes (0.96 nmol/min/mg), mitochondria (0.43 nmol/min/ mg), and Sf21 insect cells (2.75 nmol/min/mg). A: GPAT activity in rat liver microsomes. B: GPAT activity in rat liver total particulate preparations treated with 2 mM NEM on ice for 15 min to inhibit microsomal GPAT. C: Recombinant GPAT activity in Sf21 cell total particulate preparations treated with 2 mM NEM on ice for 10 min to inhibit endogenous microsomal GPAT. the corresponding residues would be necessary for mitochondrial GPAT activity. In order to gain a better understanding as to which amino acid residues might be important for activity, to compare the responses of mitochondrial and microsomal GPAT activities, and to compare mitochondrial GPAT from rat liver with recombinant mitochondrial GPAT, we tested several speci¢c amino acid reagents in isolated microsomes (for microsomal activity), in rat liver total particulate preparations treated with 2 mM NEM for 15 min on ice (for mitochondrial activity), and in insect cell total particulate preparations treated with 2 mM NEM for 10 min on ice (for recombinant GPAT activity). Inhibition of both microsomal and mitochondrial GPAT BBAMCB 50418 5-8-99 422 B. Ganesh Bhat et al. / Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 1439 (1999) 415^423 with diethylpyrocarbonate was reversible with NH2 OH, consistent with the presence of a critical histidine residue in each enzyme, however, the microsomal GPAT was more susceptible than the mitochondrial GPAT (67% vs. 40%) to inhibition by 300 WM DEPC (Fig. 3). Recombinant GPAT appeared more sensitive to DEPC, but activity was reversed only about 50% (Fig. 3C), similar to the reversal seen with the liver mitochondrial preparation (Fig. 3B). As had been reported for GPAT from E. coli [22], the arginine-speci¢c reagent phenylglyoxal inhibited both microsomal and mitochondrial GPAT activities (Fig. 4). Again, microsomal GPAT was more sensitive to the inhibitor. Microsomal and mitochondrial GPAT activities were inhibited 88% and 59%, respectively, by 1 mM phenylglyoxal. A second arginine-speci¢c inhibitor, 2,3-butanedione inhibited GPAT activities similarly; at 5 mM, 2,3-butanedione inhibited microsomal and mitochondrial GPAT activities 54% and 21%, respectively (data not shown). Of interest was the ¢nding that 10-fold higher concentrations of 2,3-butanedione were required to inhibit the recombinant GPAT compared to mitochondrial GPAT from rat liver, but the inhibitory concentrations of phenylglyoxal were similar for each, perhaps due to the di¡ering abilities of each inhibitor to access the critical arginine residue when GPAT is greatly overexpressed. Aminophenylboronate, which inhibits serine-dependent proteases and lipases [23], yielded a mixed type of inhibition with the glycerol-3-phosphate substrate (data not shown). With aminophenylboronate the apparent Ki values were 2.9 mM for microsomal GPAT, 8.2 mM for mitochondrial GPAT, and 10.3 mM for recombinant GPAT activities. Based on these inhibitor results, we speculate that for rat mitochondrial GPAT, residues that play important roles in catalysis are equivalent to the residues that were shown by site-directed mutagenesis to be critical for E. coli GPAT activity [21]. Thus, the corresponding H231 and R277 residues in rat mitochondrial GPAT would be important (Table 1). R277 in rat GPAT is equivalent to R211 in dihydroxyacetone-P acyltransferase (DHAP-AT). Of interest in this regard is a report that in four patients with rhizomelic chondrodysplasia punctata type 2 due to de¢cient DHAP-AT, R211 was mutated to histidine or cysteine [24]. Acknowledgements This work was supported by United States Public Health Service Grants DK56598 (to R.A.C.) and HD08431 (to T.M.L.) from the National Institutes of Health. References [1] R.M. Bell, R.A. Coleman, Annu. Rev. Biochem. 49 (1980) 459^487. [2] R.M. Bell, R.A. Coleman, in: P.D. Boyer (Ed.), The Enzymes, Vol. XVI,, Academic Press, New York, 1983, pp. 87^112. 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