Mercury Alters B‑Cell Protein Phosphorylation Profiles

Abstract

Environmental exposure to mercury is suggested to contribute to human immune dysfunction. To shed light on the mechanism, we identified changes in the phosphoproteomic profile of the WEHI-231 B cell line after intoxication with Hg²⁺. These changes were compared to changes in the phosphoproteome that were induced by pervanadate or okadaic acid exposure. Both 250 μM HgCl₂ and pervanadate, a known phosphotyrosine phosphatase inhibitor, caused an increase in the number of proteins identified after TiO₂ affinity selection and LC-MS/MS analysis. Pervanadate treatment had a larger effect than Hg²⁺ on the number of Scansite motifs that were tyrosine-phosphorylated, 17, and Ingenuity canonical signaling pathways activated, 4, with score >5.0. However, Hg²⁺ had a more focused effect, primarily causing tyrosine-phosphorylation in src homology 2 domains in proteins that are in the B cell receptor signaling pathway. The finding that many of the changes induced by Hg²⁺ overlap with those of pervanadate, indicates that at high concentrations Hg²⁺ inhibits protein tyrosine phosphatases