The Extended Cleavage Specificity of Human Thrombin

Thrombin is one of the most extensively studied of all proteases. Its central role in the coagulation cascade as well as several other areas has been thoroughly documented. Despite this, its consensus cleavage site has never been determined in detail. Here we have determined its extended substrate recognition profile using phage-display technology. The consensus recognition sequence was identified as, P2-Pro, P1-Arg, P1′-Ser/Ala/Gly/Thr, P2′-not acidic and P3′-Arg. Our analysis also identifies an important role for a P3′-arginine in thrombin substrates lacking a P2-proline. In order to study kinetics of this cooperative or additive effect we developed a system for insertion of various pre-selected cleavable sequences in a linker region between two thioredoxin molecules. Using this system we show that mutations of P2-Pro and P3′-Arg lead to an approximate 20-fold and 14-fold reduction, respectively in the rate of cleavage. Mutating both Pro and Arg results in a drop in cleavage of 200–400 times, which highlights the importance of these two positions for maximal substrate cleavage. Interestingly, no natural substrates display the obtained consensus sequence but represent sequences that show only 1–30% of the optimal cleavage rate for thrombin. This clearly indicates that maximal cleavage, excluding the help of exosite interactions, is not always desired, which may instead cause problems with dysregulated coagulation. It is likely exosite cooperativity has a central role in determining the specificity and rate of cleavage of many of these in vivo substrates. Major effects on cleavage efficiency were also observed for residues as far away as 4 amino acids from the cleavage site. Insertion of an aspartic acid in position P4 resulted in a drop in cleavage by a factor of almost 20 times

Caspase-2 Mediated Apoptotic and Necrotic Murine Macrophage Cell Death Induced by Rough Brucella abortus

Brucella species are Gram-negative, facultative intracellular bacteria that cause zoonotic brucellosis. Survival and replication inside macrophages is critical for establishment of chronic Brucella infection. Virulent smooth B. abortus strain 2308 inhibits programmed macrophage cell death and replicates inside macrophages. Cattle B. abortus vaccine strain RB51 is an attenuated rough, lipopolysaccharide O antigen-deficient mutant derived from smooth strain 2308. B. abortus rough mutant RA1 contains a single wboA gene mutation in strain 2308. Our studies demonstrated that live RB51 and RA1, but not strain 2308 or heat-killed Brucella, induced both apoptotic and necrotic cell death in murine RAW264.7 macrophages and bone marrow derived macrophages. The same phenomenon was also observed in primary mouse peritoneal macrophages from mice immunized intraperitoneally with vaccine strain RB51 using the same dose as regularly performed in protection studies. Programmed macrophage cell death induced by RB51 and RA1 was inhibited by a caspase-2 inhibitor (Z-VDVAD-FMK). Caspase-2 enzyme activation and cleavage were observed at the early infection stage in macrophages infected with RB51 and RA1 but not strain 2308. The inhibition of macrophage cell death promoted the survival of rough Brucella cells inside macrophages. The critical role of caspase-2 in mediating rough B. abortus induced macrophage cell death was confirmed using caspase-2 specific shRNA. The mitochondrial apoptosis pathway was activated in macrophages infected with rough B. abortus as demonstrated by increase in mitochondrial membrane permeability and the release of cytochrome c to cytoplasm in macrophages infected with rough Brucella. These results demonstrate that rough B. abortus strains RB51 and RA1 induce apoptotic and necrotic murine macrophage cell death that is mediated by caspase-2. The biological relevance of Brucella O antigen and caspase-2-mediated macrophage cell death in Brucella pathogenesis and protective Brucella immunity is discussed