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Address correspondence to Ping L. Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., Division of Laboratory Medicine, Geisinger Medical Center, 100 North Academy Ave, Danville, PA 17822, USA; tel 570 271 6333; fax 570 271 6105; e-mail plzhang{at}geisinger.edu.
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(received 26 May 2004; accepted 29 June 2004)
Keywords: endoplasmic reticulum, glucose regulated proteins, cytoprotection, cardiomyocytes, oxidative stress
| Introduction |
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Studies on transgenic mice that overexpress HSP70, a cytosolic molecular chaperone, have demonstrated that this protein confers myocardial protection against ischemia-reperfusion injury [6,7]. In addition, in vitro up-regulation of HSP70 in cultured cells increases the tolerance of cardiac myocytes to subsequent oxidative injury [8]. The cytoprotective role of GRP in cardiac myocytes has not been investigated, although overexpressed GRP in cultured renal and neural cells has been shown to enhance cellular tolerance to ischemic, toxic, and oxidative insults [912].
The mechanism for ER chaperone-associated cytoprotection is unclear. The protection can result from stabilizing unfolded ER proteins or preventing release of Ca2+ from the ER into the cytoplasm [9,10]. Since accumulation of cytosolic Ca2+ ([Ca2+]in) is believed to be the major factor triggering cell death [13,14], we hypothesize that preinduced ER chaperones can buffer more Ca2+ in the ER and maintain a relatively stable level of [Ca2+]in in the presence of insults.
In this study we induced GRP78 with Ca2+-binding capacity. Then we assessed the cytoprotective role of preinduced ER chaperones in H9c2 cardiomyocytes subjected to prolong ATP depletion or oxidative stress induced by hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), mimicking a state of cardiac ischemia and reperfusion injury.
| Materials and Methods |
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Cell cultures. H9c2 cardiomyocytes isolated from rat myocardium were purchased from the American Type Culture Collection (Rockville, MD). They were continuously maintained in Dulbeccos modified Eagles medium (DMEM) (Gibco-BRL, Gaithersburg, MD) supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS) and antibiotics in an atmosphere of 95% air and 5% CO2.
Pre-treatment of H9c2 cells with tunicamycin and challenged with ATP depletion or oxidative stress. Confluent monolayers of H9c2 myocytes in DMEM containing 10% heat-inactivated FBS were rinsed with phosphate buffered saline (PBS) twice and then incubated for 16 hr with or without tunicamycin (10 and 100 nM). H9c2 myocytes were then treated with or without 10 µM antimycin A (oxidative-phosphorylation inhibitor) in PBS with 1.5 mM CaCl2 and 2 mM MgCl2 for 5 hr to deplete ATP, or with 50 to 100 mM H2O2 in culture medium for 1 hr to induce oxidative stress. Intracellular ATP concentrations were determined for each group using a Bioluminescence Assay Kit (Sigma).
Western blots. Confluent H9c2 cardiac myocytes were treated with tunicamycin (10 and 100 nM) for 16 hr. Cells were harvested and sonicated. Cell homogenates, at 50 µg total protein per lane, were electrophoresed on 712% SDS PAGE. Fractionated proteins were transferred onto nitrocellulose membranes. For immunostaining of GRP78, rabbit anti-GRP78 antibody (1:2,000 dilution) was used. The second antibody was anti-rabbit horseradish peroxidase-linked whole antibody (from donkey) (1:2,000 dilution). Immunoreactive proteins were visualized by an enhanced chemiluminescence-Western blotting system (Amersham Phamacia Biotech, Piscataway, NJ). Immunostaining of calsequestrin (1:2,000 dilution) was performed as described above, using respective primary and secondary antibodies. Each experiment was repeated at least 3 times.
Real Time PCR. Total RNA was isolated from untreated and tunicamycin-treated H9c2 cells using RNA zol-B isolation kit (Tel-Test, Inc, Friendswood, TX) according to the manufacturers instructions. To remove possible genomic DNA contaminants, 2 µg of total RNA from each sample was treated with 2 U of RNAse-free deoxyribonuclease I (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA). One µg of purified RNA from each sample was reverse transcribed to cDNA using Taqman reverse transcriptase kit with random hexamers according to the manufacturers instructions (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA). No enzyme was added for the reversetranscriptase-negative controls. The resulting cDNA was diluted to a final concentration of 10 ng/µl and frozen at 20°C until further use. The GRP78 primer/TaqMan probe was designed based on the sequence in the first exon of rat GRP78 gene (GenBank accession #M14866) using Primer Express Software (Applied Biosystems). The sequences of the probe and primers were:
TaqMan Probe:
(FAM)-AGCGACTGACTGGTCCACAGCGC-(TAMRA);
ForwardPrimer:
TTGCTGGACTCTGTGAGACACC; and
Reverse primer:
CGCCACCACAGTGAACTTCA.
The probes, primers, reagents, and buffers were all purchased from Applied Biosystems. PCR amplification of GRP78 was carried out in a total volume of 50 µl containing 50 ng of template cDNA, 25 µl of universal Master Mix buffer, 400 nM forward and reverse primers, and 200 nM TaqMan probe. To account for differences in starting cDNA samples, the 20x pre-developed 18s rRNA reagents were used according to manufacturers instructions. The GRP78 and 18s rRNA PCR reactions were run in separate tubes in duplicate on an ABI prism 7700 Sequence detector. The thermal cycling conditions consisted of 2 min at 50°C and 10 min at 95°C, followed by 40 cycles at 95°C for 15 sec and 60°C for 60 sec. RT-negative control and template-free control were included in each assay. Data were analyzed by Sequence Detector Software. The mean threshold cycle (Ct) value was calculated from the duplicates of each cDNA sample.
The relative differences in GRP78 gene expression between the tunicamycin-treated and untreated groups were determined using a comparative CT method. The CT values of the GRP78 were normalized by subtracting the CT value for the 18s rRNA, yielding a
CT value for each sample. Subtracting the
CT for the untreated group from that of the treated group yields a
CT value that can be directly converted to a fold-increase over the untreated control group.
Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and cell viability assays. Confluent monolayers of H9c2 cells growing in 96-well plates were incubated in the presence or absence of stress protein-inducing agents for 16 hr and subsequently subjected to ATP depletion or oxidative stress. LDH levels in the medium were measured before and after the ATP depletion or hydrogen peroxide treatment using the Cytotox 96 non-radioactive cytotoxicity assay (Promega, Madison, WI). Quantification of LDH content was performed on a microtiter plate reader at 490 nm. The amount of LDH released into the culture supernatant was calculated from a standard curve. To determine cell viability, 100 µl of serum-free medium were added to cells in each well. Then, 20 µl of One-Step Assay Solution (CellTiter 96 one solution proliferation assay, Promega, Madison, WI) containing tetrazolium was added to each well. The tetrazolium compound can be bioreduced by viable cells to form colored formazan product soluble in culture medium. After incubation for 30 min, numbers of viable cells were determined by measuring absorbance at 490 nm using a microtiter plate reader.
Measurement of [Ca2+]in. Cardiomyocytes grown on glass coverslips were exposed to 1.34 mM fura-2 acetoxymethyl ester for 20 min at 37°C. Fura-2 loaded myocytes were mounted in a Dvorak-Stotler chamber situated in a temperature-controlled stage (37°C) of a Zeiss IM35 inverted microscope. Epifluoresence (510 ± 18 nm) collected by an Olympus Dapo UV X 40/1.3 numerical aperature oil objective was passed through a pinhole (1.6 mm) and captured by a photomultiplier. Signal from the photomultiplier was routed through an amplifier/discriminator (model C609, Thorn EMI, Middlesex, UK) before arrival at a counter/timer board (model C660, Thorn EMI). Epifluorescence from a myocyte collected at 360-nm excitation was divided by that collected at 380-nm excitation to obtain the fluorescence intensity ratio (R), from which [Ca2+]in was calculated by using 224 nM as the Ca2+-fura 2 dissociation constant [15,16].
Statistics. Results are reported as mean ± SEM. Significance of multiple comparisons was determined by ANOVA followed by a Bonferroni/Dunn test. A p value of <0.05 was considered significant.
| Results |
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| Discussion |
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The current data showed that tunicamycin treatment resulted in protein overexpression of GRP78 in H9c2 cardiomyocytes. Real time PCR revealed a quantitative increase in GRP78 mRNA up to 33-fold in tunicamycin-treated cardiomyocytes. The data are consistent with our previous findings in cultured renal cells [9,19].
Although preinduced cytoplasmic chaperones (heat shock proteins) have been well documented to protect cardiomyocytes from lethal injury in vitro and in vivo [68], our current data provide the first evidence that preinduced ER chaperones protect cardiomyocytes from both energy depletion and oxidative stress. Several studies have reported that ER chaperones are critical for cellular survival in non-cardiac cells under a lethal stress. In a Chinese hamster ovary cell line, GRP78 antisense transcripts resulted in increased toxicity to A23187 [GenBank] and chronic hypoxia [20,21]. Similarly, GRP78 antisense in cultured renal and neural cell lines was also responsible for a reduced survival capacity when subjected to toxic stress [10,22]. By contrast, preinduction of ER chaperones such as GRP78 and calreticulin were associated with less damage in renal cells subjected to prolonged ATP depletion and various toxic insults [911]. Preinduced protein-disulfide isomerase, an ER chaperone, protected primary astrocytes from hypoxic injury [12]. These investigators also demonstrated reduced brain damage in an area overexpressing protein-disulfide isomerase in response to brain ischemia in rats [12]. Taken together, preconditionally induced molecular chaperones, either in the cytoplasm or the ER, play an important role in cytoprotection from subsequent injury.
A major function of ER chaperones is to promote maturation of newly synthesized proteins to functional units. When ER chaperones are upregulated, they bind to more unfolded proteins [19,23]. This feature of upregulated ER chaperones has been proposed as a potential mechanism for their preconditioning cytoprotection [9], although as yet there is no evidence to support this suggestion. A similar speculation was proposed for the cytoprotective effects of preinduced cytoplasmic chaperones [68], but neither has this been proven experimentally.
In contrast to cytosolic chaperones, ER chaperones have a large capacity to bind Ca2+ and are possibly involved in regulation of Ca2+ homeostasis. At resting level, there are about 600 mM of Ca2+ in the ER, but only approximately 100 nM of Ca2+ are present in the cytoplasm. Therefore, ER provides a large reservoir for Ca2+ storage [24,25]. Ca2+ from the ER is released into cytoplasm mainly via ryano-dine receptors on the ER membranes of cardiomyocytes, whereas it is taken back to the ER by sarco-(endo)plasmic reticulum Ca2+ ATPase (SERCA) [24,25]. In the ER, other than the high capacity Ca2+-binding protein, calsequestrin, GRP78 can bind up to 25% of calcium under resting conditions [26]. The P domain of calreticulin can bind Ca2+ with high affinity and low capacity, whereas the C domain region of the protein binds Ca2+ with low affinity and high capacity [25,26]. Upon the stimulation of caffeine for releasing Ca2+ into cytoplasm and blockade of Ca2+ uptake by thapsigargin, our data showed a significantly high peak Ca2+ level in the cytoplasm of tunicamycin-pretreated cardiomyocytes. This finding indicates that tunicamycin-pretreated cardiomyocytes can store more Ca2+ in the ER. Since calsequestrin remained unchanged while ER chaperones were upregulated after tunicamycin treatment, more Ca2+ in the ER most likely resulted from binding sites of the overexpressed ER chaperones being more available. Our data are consistent with reports that transfected non-cardiac cells overexpressing GRP78 or calreticulin showed higher release of calcium into the cytoplasm, when subjected to ER Ca2+ depletion or varying ER stimulation [2628].
The enhanced capacity of overexpressed ER chaperones to store ER Ca2+ may be associated with a relatively stable level of cytosolic Ca2+ in tunica-mycin-pretreated cardiomyocytes subjected to oxidative stress, as observed in the present study. This observation is similar to the findings in cultured renal cells [10]. The P domain of calreticulin has been regarded as a structure to interact with Ca2+ release receptors and SERCA for regulation of Ca2+ and SERCA2b has been reported to be upregulated in tunicamycin-treated PC12 cells [27,29,30]. Upregulated ER chaperones, therefore, appear to regulate [Ca2+]in by active interaction with receptors for uptaking Ca2+, in addition serving as a "sink" for otherwise toxic Ca2+ concentrations in the cytoplasm that develop following H2O2 stress.
Oxidative stress can cause an increase in [Ca2+] in from several sources, such as mitochondrial Ca2+([Ca2+]M), released Ca2+ from Ca2+-binding proteins along the cell membranes, or by inactivating plasma membrane Ca2+-ATPase [21,32]. Accumulated [Ca2+]in, in turn, promotes the increase in [Ca2+]M with subsequent production of reactive oxidative species from mitochondria, which causes intracellular damage and cell death [33,34]. With oxidative stress, chelating [Ca2+]in by BAPTA prevents increases in [Ca2+]M and mitochondrial permeability, and loss of mitochondrial membrane potential, a pathway leading to mixed pattern of cell death, apoptosis and necrosis of neonatal cardiomyocytes [33]. It appears that keeping stable [Ca2+]in, by preinduced ER chaperones, may prevent accumulation [Ca2+]M, thus reducing cell death. Since there may be mutual talk between [Ca2+]M and Ca2+ in the ER [28,35,36], we can not exclude the possibility that preinduced ER chaperones have more direct effects on lowering [Ca2+]M and cell death under oxidative stress.
In summary, GRP78 (at both mRNA and protein levels) was significantly upregulated following tunicamycin treatment. This may be a key factor responsible for both the increased calcium release when subjected to both caffeine and thapsigargin treatment and for maintaining a relatively normal level of [Ca2+]in when exposed to oxidative challenge. These characteristics of over-expressed ER chaperones may provide a plausible mechanism for the preconditioning cytoprotection of H9c2 cardiomyocytes pretreated with tunicamycin.
| Acknowledgements |
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| References |
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