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Disorders of Hemostasis |
1 Center de Genètica Mèdica i Molecular, IDIBELL, LHospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona;
2 Institut Municipal dAssistència Sanitària (IMAS), Hospital del Mar, Barcelona;
3 Unitat de Trombosi i Hemostàsia, Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge, LHospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona;
4 Department of Neurological and Vascular Research, Institute for Biomedical Research of Barcelona, IIBB-CSIC-IDIBAPS, Barcelona;
5 Laboratori de Recerca Translacional, Institut Català dOncologia (ICO)-IDIBELL, LHospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain
Correspondence: Núria Sala, Laboratori de Recerca Translacional, Institut Català dOncologia-IDIBELL, Gran Via, km 2.7 s/n, 08907 LHospitalet de Llobregat (Barcelona), Spain. E-mail:nsala{at}iconcologia.net
| ABSTRACT |
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Design and Methods: Five mutations were nonsense, three were small frameshift deletions, one was c.258,259AG>GT at the 3 end of exon 3, one was p.M640T and the last two were c.-7C>G and p.L15H, found in double heterozygosis as [c.-7C>G;44T>A].The apparently neutral variant p.R233K was also analyzed. PROS1 cDNA was assessed by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction of platelet mRNA. Expression of mutant proteins was determined by site-directed mutagenesis and analyses of transiently transfected PROS1 mutants in COS-7 cells.
Results: Only cDNA from the normal allele was observed from the five nonsense mutations, the frameshift deletion c.1731delT and from c.258,259AG>GT. Both the normal and the mutated alleles were observed from [c.-7C>G;44T>A], c.187,188delTG and p.M640T. Transient expression analyses of PROS1 mutants whose mRNA was normally expressed revealed greatly reduced secretion of p.L15H and c.1272delA, mild secretion values of p.M640T and normal secretion levels of c.-7C>G and, as expected, p.R233K.
Conclusions: Whereas the main cause of quantitative protein S deficiency associated with missense mutations is defective synthesis, stability or secretion of the mutated protein, the main mechanism for the deficiency associated with mutations that generate a premature termination codon is not the synthesis of a truncated protein, but the exclusion of the mutated allele, probably by nonsense-mediated mRNA decay.
Key words: mRNA, mutant protein, PROS1 mutations, protein S deficiency.
| Introduction |
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-carboxyglutamic acid-containing domain, a thrombin-sensitive region, four epidermal growth factor-like domains and a C-terminal domain that is homologous to the laminin A globular-like domains.1 Mature PS circulates in plasma as a single chain, 635-amino acid protein with a molecular weight of approximately 75 kDa. In human plasma, approximately 60% of PS forms a non-covalent equimolar complex with the β-chain of C4BP that is inactive as activated protein C co-factor.5 PS deficiency (OMIM: +176880) is a recognized genetic risk factor for thrombosis.1 It is an autosomal dominant trait with incomplete penetrance and variable clinical and biochemical expression which affects 2% to 8% of patients with thrombosis in Caucasian populations.6 According to plasma levels of total and free PS antigen and to the functional activity of PS, three types of PS deficiency have been proposed. Type I is a quantitative deficiency characterized by reduced levels of total and free PS antigen, as well as anticoagulant activity; type II is a qualitative deficiency characterized by normal levels of PS antigen but reduced anticoagulant activity; type III PS deficiency, which may be considered as a mild quantitative deficiency,7 is characterized by normal levels of total PS antigen but reduced levels of free PS antigen and activity. The thrombotic risk associated with heterozygous type I PS deficiency is between 2.5 and 10-fold higher than in the general population.6,8
The PS gene (PROS1; Gene ID: 5627) spans 101 Kb of genomic DNA in the centromeric region of chromosome3. It is composed of 15 exons that are transcribed in 3.5 Kb of mRNA (NM_000313).9 There are over 200 PROS1 defects that segregate with PS deficiency in familial studies10 but the molecular mechanisms by which these mutations reduce plasma PS levels have been analyzed in fewer than one third of them. Furthermore, while most studies have been focused on the analysis of recombinant PROS1 mis-sense mutations11–15 or mRNA analyses from splice-site mutations,16–25 the effect on mRNA expression of mutations that generate a premature termination codon has been analyzed for only six nonsense or frameshift PROS1 mutations.26–31 Analysis of the functional effects of PROS1 mutations will improve the knowledge of the mechanisms underlying PS function. The purpose of this study was to analyze the functional relevance, both at RNA and protein levels, of 12 natural PROS1 mutations associated with quantitative PS deficiency and thrombosis in Spanish pedigrees.
| Design and Methods |
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Site-directed mutagenesis and expression of recombinant PS variants
Human PS cDNA subcloned in pcDNA3.1 was used as the template for mutagenesis (primers available upon request), as previously described.11 Mutant constructs were confirmed by full cDNA sequencing. All PROS1 cDNA expression vectors were transcribed and translated in vitro using the TNT®Coupled Reticulocyte System (Promega, Madison, WI, USA). [35S-Met] synthesized polypeptide chains were analyzed using 7.5% sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), fixed, dried and revealed by autoradiography. For transient expression of recombinant PS, COS-7 cells were grown in Dulbecc'os modified Eagless medium (Gibco-BRL, Gaithersburg, MD, USA) supplemented with 10% (v/v) fetal bovine serum (Gibco-BRL), 2 mM glutamine, 100 units/mL penicillin and 100 µg/mL streptomycin and maintained at 37 ºC in 5% CO2. Cells were co-transfected by the DEAE-dextran method11 with 2.0 µg of mock vector, wild type (wt) or mutant PS constructs, 0.5 µg of the β-galactosidase and 0.5 µg of the secreted alkaline phosphatase (SEAP, Clontech, Palo Alto, CA, USA) control vectors. These control vectors were used for normalizing transfection efficiency of recombinant PS in the culture medium and in the cellular extracts, respectively. After 24 hours of transfection, the medium was changed to serum-free medium supplemented with 10 mg/L of vitamin K1, harvested 48 hours later and concentrated 10-fold.11 Soluble cell extracts were prepared by lysing cells in potassium phosphate buffer 100 mM pH 7.3, 20% (v/v) Triton X-100 and 1 mM dithiothreitol. At least two independent experiments were performed in triplicate, except for the [c.-7C>G;44T>A] double mutant experiment that was performed once.
Western blot analysis
Western blot of 2.5 µg of concentrated media and 3.25 µg of soluble cell extract proteins separated by 7.5% SDS-PAGE under reduced conditions was analyzed by using a rabbit polyclonal antibody against human PS (DAKO, Glostrup, Denmark). Inmunoreactive electrophoretic bands were detected by enhanced chemiluminiscence (ECL AdvanceTM, Amersham) using a VersaDoc® 5000 Imager (BioRad, Hercules, CA) and quantified by Quantity One® software (BioRad). In all assays, 25 ng of commercial purified human plasma PS (Enzyme Research Laboratories, Swansea, UK) were also included. SEAP in the concentrated media was quantitatively assayed with the Great EscAPe SEAP Chemiluminescent Kit (Clontech). Relative amounts of PS were normalized for the corresponding SEAP values from culture media and actin/β-galatosidase values from cell lysates.
PS enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay
Wild-type and mutated PS in culture media were quantified by ELISA using the Asserachrom® total and free protein S kits (Diagnostica Stago, France) with some modifications. Briefly, 25 µg of total protein in phosphate-buffered saline were used in both assays. Moreover, a standard curve of 150, 100, 50, 12.5 and 6.25 ng of purified human plasma PS (Enzyme Research Laboratories) in phosphate-buffered saline was prepared (Online Supplementary Figure S1). All secreted PS values were normalized for transfection efficiency as previously described and quantified through the standard curve. At least two independent experiments were performed in triplicate.
| Results |
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Transient expression analysis of PS mutants
Transient expression analysis of PROS1 mutants in COS-7 cells was performed for [c.-7C>G;44T>A] and p.M640T mutations that did not result in allelic exclusion (Table 2), and for c.1272delA (not available for mRNA studies) and p.R233K mutations. The effect of the single mutants c.-7C>G and c.44T>A (p.L15H) was also analyzed. Although mRNA from c.187,188delTG was present, we did not consider it necessary to analyze this PS mutant that was expected to result in a truncated protein of only 64 residues. As shown in Figure 1, in vitro transcription-translation of all PS mutants, except c.1272delA, revealed [35S-Met]-labeled proteins of 68 kDa, which is the molecular weight of native PS without post-translational modifications. cDNA containing the c.1272delA mutation was translated into a 49 kDa protein, which is the molecular weight of the truncated protein (p.K424KfsX22) that is expected to result from this frameshift mutation.
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Quantification of mutant PS secretion by ELISA
In order to confirm the western blot results, PS in the culture media was quantified by ELISA. As shown in Figure 3, the results obtained (which were similar for total and free PS ELISA) agreed well with those calculated from the western blots for secreted PS. The lowest secretion values (around 10% of wild-type PS) were obtained with the p.K424KfsX22 and p.L15H mutants, and with the double mutant [c.-7C>G;44T>A]. Between 40% and 50% of wild-type PS was obtained with the p.M640T mutant. Protein concentrations similar to wild-type PS were obtained with the c.-7C>G and p.R233K mutants.
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| Discussion |
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Analysis of cDNA sequences revealed the absence of detectable amounts of the mutated allele from heterozygotes for the five nonsense mutations, the frameshift deletion c.1731delT (p.F577LfsX15) and the splice site and mis-sense mutation c.258,259AG>GT (p.V87F), at the 3 end of exon 3. In the case of p.R451X and p.W506X, this was in agreement with previous reports.26,28 Interestingly, all the nonsense mutations that showed allelic exclusion, but p.Q279X, are localized more than 50 nucleotides upstream of an exon-exon junction. By contrast, c.187,188delTG, which results in a premature termination codon at position 23, at 40 nucleotides from the junction between exons 2 and 3, is expressed at the mRNA level, as are the double mutant [c.-7C>G;44T>A] and p.M640T. This agrees with the 50 bp nonsense-mediated mRNA decay rule, which states that premature termination codons that are followed by an intron more than 50–55 nucleotides downstream generally elicit nonsense-mediated mRNA decay.35 The only mutation that does not follow the 50 bp nonsense-mediated mRNA decay rule is c.835C>T (p.Q279X), at only 12 bp upstream of the exons 8 and 9 junction. Though the mechanism by which this mutation elicits nonsense-mediated mRNA decay is unknown, in silico analysis with the ESE-finder (http://exon.cshl.org/ESE)36 and the RESCUE-ESE (http://genes.mit.edu/burgelab/rescue-ese)37 programs revealed that c.835C>T abolishes a strong exon splicing enhancer site for SF2/ASF and reduces the score for SC35 and SRp40 splicing factors. This could result in defective splicing of intron 8, exon skipping, frameshift and introduction of another premature termination codon. Unfortunately, we could not test this hypothesis because of the lack of availability of new fresh blood samples needed to perform mRNA studies in a medium that inhibits nonsense-mediated mRNA decay. Similarly, the absence of mutated mRNA from c.258,259AG>GT indicates that what causes PS deficiency is not the p.V87F substitution that would result from this mutation if normally spliced, but an alteration of the normal splicing of intron 3. This agrees with the observation that this mutation reduces the consensus value of the wild type donor splice site of intron 3 to a value lower than the one calculated for the c.259G>C (p.V87L) mutation,7 which also results in reduced mRNA expression.18
Since it was confirmed that [c.-7C>G;44T>A] and p.M640T are not affected by nonsense-mediated mRNA decay, their functional consequences, as well as those of c.1272delA and p.R233K, were analyzed by means of transient transfection experiments in COS-7 cells. According to the results obtained, we can cluster these mutations into three groups: c.-7C>G and p.R233K with normal secretion values, p.M640T which showed mildly reduced secretion values, and p.L15H and p.K424KfsX22 which showed undetectable secretion of the mutated protein.
In the first group, the amounts of c.-7C>G and p.R233K recombinant PS were similar to those of the wild-type PS, thus indicating similar levels of synthesis and secretion. This indicates that these mutant proteins are neutral variants of PROS1.10 In the case of p.R233K this was not surprising, given the conservative nature of the amino-acid replacement.1 The p.M640T mutation resulted in a 60% reduction of protein secretion compared to that obtained with wild-type PS but, by contrast, there was 40% more mutant PS than wild-type PS in the cell extract. This suggests that the mutant protein is normally synthesized but accumulates in the cell, probably because of a secretion and degradation defect caused by the synthesis of a structurally abnormal protein, as already postulated for the substitution of the highly conserved hydrophobic Met 640 residue of the second laminin A globular domain β-strand by a polar one.1
The lowest amounts of PS were obtained with mutations p.L15H, the double mutant [c.-7C>G;44T>A] and c.1272delA (p.K424KfsX22); the protein was absent or present at very low levels in both the cell extract and the cell media. These results indicate that these mutations cause quantitative PS deficiency by reduced synthesis or increased clearance of the mutant proteins. Furthermore, the fact that c.-7C>G showed normal PS secretion, indicates that PS deficiency in the [c.-7C>G;44T>A] double heterozygotes is caused by the c.44T>A (p.L15H ) mutation. As recently reviewed,1 the substitution of a polar residue for a hydrophobic one in the signal peptide compromises its properties as a signal sequence for correct membrane translocation and protein secretion. With regard to the c.1272delA mutant, we detected some truncated p.K424KfsX22 mutant protein in the cell extract. Since no mRNA expression studies could be performed, we cannot exclude that this mutation results in nonsense-mediated mRNA decay but if it does not, it would also result in quantitative PS deficiency, probably because the truncated protein is degraded intracellularly.
We also observed a good correlation between recombinant PS secretion and plasma PS levels in the heterozygotes for the mutations analyzed. Thus, while p.R233K was found in patients with normal PS levels, heterozygotes for p.M640T showed mean free (28±3.4%) and, particularly, total (65±9.5%) PS values higher than the mean values (21±9.5 for free PS and 53±13.7 for total PS) in 74 heterozygotes for mutations that result in a more severe secretion defect, such as p.L15H or c.1272delA, or that are subjected to nonsense-mediated mRNA decay. Furthermore, the fact that heterozygotes for four of these more severe mutations show either type I or type III PS deficiency phenotypes suggests that, at least in these pedigrees, the PS deficiency phenotype is unrelated to the PROS1 mutation genotype.
In summary, the present results indicate that whereas the main mechanism for quantitative PS deficiency associated with missense mutations is impaired synthesis, stability or secretion of the mutated protein, mutations that result in a premature termination codon result in a quantitative PS deficiency mainly because of exclusion of the mutated allele, probably by nonsense-mediated mRNA decay.
| Footnotes |
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Funding: we acknowledge grants ISCIII 01/1468, ISCIII network C03/07 and ISCIII PI051149, from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III; SAF 2001-1059 and SAF2004-07539, from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science; and grant 2002-PIR-00333 from the AGAUR, Generalitat de Catalunya. BH is the recipient of a grant from the Institut dInvestigació Biomèdica de Bellvitge (IDIBELL06/IDB-001).
Present address: Laboratori de Recerca Translacional, Institut Català dOncologia (ICO)-IDIBELL, LHospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona
Conception and design of the study: BH, PGF, MPR and NS; acquisition and/or analysis of data: BH, XM, MCM, GN, PD, PGF, MPR and NS; drafting the article: BH, MPR and NS; critical revision of the article: all authors; all authors approved the final, submitted version of the manuscript. The authors reported no potential conflicts of interest.
Received for publication August 9, 2007. Revision received October 19, 2007. Accepted for publication November 15, 2007.
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