Molecular targets for anti-oxidative protection of green tea polyphenols against myocardial ischemic injury.

Ischemic heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. An improved understanding of the mechanisms involved in myocardial injury would allow intervention downstream in the pathway where certain drugs including natural products could be efficiently applied to target the end effectors of the cell death pathway. Green tea polyphenols (GTPs) have potent anti-oxidative capabilities, which may account for their beneficial effects in preventing oxidative stress associated with ischemia injury. Although studies have provided convincing evidence to support the protective effects of GTPs in cardiovascular system, the potential end effectors that mediate cardiac protection are only beginning to be addressed. Proteomics analyses widely used to identify the protein targets for many cardiovascular diseases have advanced the discovery of the signaling mechanism for GTPs-mediated cardio-protection. This review focuses on putative triggers, mediators, and end effectors for the GTPs-mediated cardio-protection signaling pathways engaged in myocardial ischemia crisis, allowing a promising natural product to be used for ameliorating oxidative stress associated with ischemic heart diseases.

Molecular identification for epigallocatechin-3-gallate-mediated antioxidant intervention on the H2O2-induced oxidative stress in H9c2 rat cardiomyoblasts.

BACKGROUND: Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) has been documented for its beneficial effects protecting oxidative stress to cardiac cells. Previously, we have shown the EGCG-mediated cardiac protection by attenuating reactive oxygen species and cytosolic Ca2+ in cardiac cells during oxidative stress and myocardial ischemia. Here, we aimed to seek a deeper elucidation of the molecular anti-oxidative capabilities of EGCG in an H2O2-induced oxidative stress model of myocardial ischemia injury using H9c2 rat cardiomyoblasts. RESULTS: Proteomics analysis was used to determine the differential expression of proteins in H9c2 cells cultured in the conditions of control, 400 µM H2O2 exposure for 30 min with and/or without 10 to 20 µM EGCG pre-treatment. In this model, eight proteins associated with energy metabolism, mitochondrial electron transfer, redox regulation, signal transduction, and RNA binding were identified to take part in EGCG-ameliorating H2O2-induced injury in H9c2 cells. H2O2 exposure increased oxidative stress evidenced by increases in reactive oxygen species and cytosolic Ca2+ overload, increases in glycolytic protein, α-enolase, decreases in antioxidant protein, peroxiredoxin-4, as well as decreases in mitochondrial proteins, including aldehyde dehydrogenase-2, ornithine aminotransferase, and succinate dehydrogenase ubiquinone flavoprotein subunit. All of these effects were reversed by EGCG pre-treatment. In addition, EGCG attenuated the H2O2-induced increases of Type II inositol 3, 4-bisphosphate 4-phosphatase and relieved its subsequent inhibition of the downstream signalling for Akt and glycogen synthase kinase-3ß (GSK-3ß)/cyclin D1 in H9c2 cells. Pre-treatment with EGCG or GSK-3ß inhibitor (SB 216763) significantly improved the H2O2-induced suppression on cell viability, phosphorylation of pAkt (S473) and pGSK-3ß (S9), and level of cyclin D1 in cells. CONCLUSIONS: Collectively, these findings suggest that EGCG blunts the H2O2-induced oxidative effect on the Akt activity through the modulation of PIP3 synthesis leading to the subsequent inactivation of GSK-3ß mediated cardiac cell injury.

Epigallocatechin-3-gallate-mediated cardioprotection by Akt/GSK-3ß/caveolin signalling in H9c2 rat cardiomyoblasts.

BACKGROUND: Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCg) with its potent anti-oxidative capabilities is known for its beneficial effects ameliorating oxidative injury to cardiac cells. Although studies have provided convincing evidence to support the cardioprotective effects of EGCg, it remains unclear whether EGCg affect trans-membrane signalling in cardiac cells. Here, we have demonstrated the potential mechanism for cardioprotection of EGCg against H2O2-induced oxidative stress in H9c2 cardiomyoblasts. RESULTS: Exposing H9c2 cells to H2O2 suppressed cell viability and altered the expression of adherens and gap junction proteins with increased levels of intracellular reactive oxygen species and cytosolic Ca2+. These detrimental effects were attenuated by pre-treating cells with EGCg for 30 min. EGCg also attenuated H2O2-mediated cell cycle arrest at the G1-S phase through the glycogen synthase kinase-3ß (GSK-3ß)/ß-catenin/cyclin D1 signalling pathway. To determine how EGCg targets H9c2 cells, enhanced green fluorescence protein (EGFP) was ectopically expressed in these cells. EGFP-emission fluorescence spectroscopy revealed that EGCg induced dose-dependent fluorescence changes in EGFP expressing cells, suggesting that EGCg signalling events might trigger proximity changes of EGFP expressed in these cells. Proteomics studies showed that EGFP formed complexes with the 67 kD laminin receptor, caveolin-1 and -3, ß-actin, myosin 9, vimentin in EGFP expressing cells. Using in vitro oxidative stress and in vivo myocardial ischemia models, we also demonstrated the involvement of caveolin in EGCg-mediated cardioprotection. In addition, EGCg-mediated caveolin-1 activation was found to be modulated by Akt/GSK-3ß signalling in H2O2-induced H9c2 cell injury. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that caveolin serves as a membrane raft that may help mediate cardioprotective EGCg transmembrane signalling.

Localization of proteins that are coordinately expressed with Cln2 during the cell cycle.

The localization of proteins can give important clues about their function and help sort data from large-scale proteomic screens. Forty-five proteins were tagged with the GFP variant YFP. These proteins were chosen because they are encoded by genes that display strong cell cycle-dependent expression that peaks in G(1). Most of these proteins localize to either the nucleus or to sites of cell growth. We are able to assign new cellular component GO terms to ASF2, TOS4, RTT109, YBR070C, YKR090W, YOL007C, YOL019W and YPR174C. We also have localization data for 21 other proteins. Noteworthy localizations were found for Rfa1p, a member of the DNA replication A complex, and Pri2p and Pol12p, subunits of the alpha-DNA polymerase : primase complex. In addition to its nuclear localization, Rfa1p assembled into cytoplasmic foci adjacent to the nucleus in cells during the G(1)-S phase transition of the cell cycle. Pri2 and Pol12 took on a beaded appearance at the G(1)-S transition and later in the cell cycle were enriched in the nuclear envelope. A new spindle pole body/nuclear envelope component encoded by YPR174 was identified. The cell cycle-dependent abundance of Tos4p mirrored Yox1p and these two proteins were the only proteins that were found exclusively at the G(1)-S phase of the cell cycle. A complete list of localizations, along with images, can be found at our website (http://www.yeastrc.org/cln2/).

Assigning function to yeast proteins by integration of technologies.

Interpreting genome sequences requires the functional analysis of thousands of predicted proteins, many of which are uncharacterized and without obvious homologs. To assess whether the roles of large sets of uncharacterized genes can be assigned by targeted application of a suite of technologies, we used four complementary protein-based methods to analyze a set of 100 uncharacterized but essential open reading frames (ORFs) of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. These proteins were subjected to affinity purification and mass spectrometry analysis to identify copurifying proteins, two-hybrid analysis to identify interacting proteins, fluorescence microscopy to localize the proteins, and structure prediction methodology to predict structural domains or identify remote homologies. Integration of the data assigned function to 48 ORFs using at least two of the Gene Ontology (GO) categories of biological process, molecular function, and cellular component; 77 ORFs were annotated by at least one method. This combination of technologies, coupled with annotation using GO, is a powerful approach to classifying genes.