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Hoffmann, R. A wiki for the life sciences where authorship matters. Nature Genetics (2008)
 
 
 
 
 

Alterations of structure and hydrolase activity of parkinsonism-associated human ubiquitin carboxyl-terminal hydrolase L1 variants.

Ubiquitin carboxyl-terminal hydrolase L1 (UCH-L1) is a neuron-specific ubiquitin recycling enzyme. A mutation at residue 93 and polymorphism at residue 18 within human UCH-L1 are linked to familial Parkinson's disease and a decreased Parkinson's disease risk, respectively. Thus, we constructed recombinant human UCH-L1 variants and examined their structure (using circular dichroism) and hydrolase activities. We confirmed that an I93M substitution results in a decrease in kcat (45.6%) coincident with an alteration in alpha-helical content. These changes may contribute to the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease. In contrast, an S18Y substitution results in an increase in kcat (112.6%) without altering the circular dichroistic spectrum. These data suggest that UCH-L1 hydrolase activity may be inversely correlated with Parkinson's disease risk and that the hydrolase activity is protective against the disease. Furthermore, we found that oxidation of UCH-L1 by 4-hydroxynonenal, a candidate for endogenous mediator of oxidative stress-induced neuronal cell death, results in a loss of hydrolase activity. Taken together, these results suggest that further studies of altered UCH-L1 hydrolase function may provide new insights into a possible common pathogenic mechanism between familial and sporadic Parkinson's disease.[1]

References

  1. Alterations of structure and hydrolase activity of parkinsonism-associated human ubiquitin carboxyl-terminal hydrolase L1 variants. Nishikawa, K., Li, H., Kawamura, R., Osaka, H., Wang, Y.L., Hara, Y., Hirokawa, T., Manago, Y., Amano, T., Noda, M., Aoki, S., Wada, K. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. (2003) [Pubmed]
 
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