Browsing by Subject "Deoxyhypusine synthase"

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    Deoxyhypusine synthase deficiency syndrome zebrafish model: aberrant morphology, epileptiform activity, and reduced arborization of inhibitory interneurons
    (Springer Nature, 2024-09-27) Shojaeinia, Elham; Mastracci, Teresa L.; Soliman, Remon; Devinsky, Orrin; Esguerra, Camila V.; Crawford, Alexander D.; Biology, School of Science
    DHPS deficiency syndrome is an ultra-rare neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) which results from biallelic mutations in the gene encoding the enzyme deoxyhypusine synthase (DHPS). DHPS is essential to synthesize hypusine, a rare amino acid formed by post-translational modification of a conserved lysine in eukaryotic initiation factor 5 A (eIF5A). DHPS deficiency syndrome causes epilepsy, cognitive and motor impairments, and mild facial dysmorphology. In mice, a brain-specific genetic deletion of Dhps at birth impairs eIF5AHYP-dependent mRNA translation. This alters expression of proteins required for neuronal development and function, and phenotypically models features of human DHPS deficiency. We studied the role of DHPS in early brain development using a zebrafish loss-of-function model generated by knockdown of dhps expression with an antisense morpholino oligomer (MO) targeting the exon 2/intron 2 (E2I2) splice site of the dhps pre-mRNA. dhps knockdown embryos exhibited dose-dependent developmental delay and dysmorphology, including microcephaly, axis truncation, and body curvature. In dhps knockdown larvae, electrophysiological analysis showed increased epileptiform activity, and confocal microscopy analysis revealed reduced arborisation of GABAergic neurons. Our findings confirm that hypusination of eIF5A by DHPS is needed for early brain development, and zebrafish with an antisense knockdown of dhps model features of DHPS deficiency syndrome.
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    Hypusinated eIF5A is expressed in the pancreas and spleen of individuals with type 1 and type 2 diabetes
    (Public Library of Science, 2020) Mastracci, Teresa L.; Colvin, Stephanie C.; Padgett, Leah R.; Mirmira, Raghavendra G.; Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Medicine
    The gene encoding eukaryotic initiation factor 5A (EIF5A) is found in diabetes-susceptibility loci in mouse and human. eIF5A is the only protein known to contain hypusine (hydroxyputrescine lysine), a polyamine-derived amino acid formed post-translationally in a reaction catalyzed by deoxyhypusine synthase (DHPS). Previous studies showed pharmacologic blockade of DHPS in type 1 diabetic NOD mice and type 2 diabetic db/db mice improved glucose tolerance and preserved beta cell mass, which suggests that hypusinated eIF5A (eIF5AHyp) may play a role in diabetes pathogenesis by direct action on the beta cells and/or altering the adaptive or innate immune responses. To translate these findings to human, we examined tissue from individuals with and without type 1 and type 2 diabetes to determine the expression of eIF5AHyp. We detected eIF5AHyp in beta cells, exocrine cells and immune cells; however, there was also unexpected enrichment of eIF5AHyp in pancreatic polypeptide-expressing PP cells. Interestingly, the presence of eIF5AHyp co-expressing PP cells was not enhanced with disease. These data identify new aspects of eIF5A biology and highlight the need to examine human tissue to understand disease.
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    Neuron-specific ablation of eIF5A or deoxyhypusine synthase leads to impairments in growth, viability, neurodevelopment, and cognitive functions in mice
    (Elsevier, 2021) Kar, Rajesh Kumar; Hanner, Ashleigh S.; Starost, Matthew F.; Springer, Danielle; Mastracci, Teresa L.; Mirmira, Raghavendra G.; Park, Myung Hee; Biology, School of Science
    Eukaryotic initiation factor 5A (eIF5A)†, ‡ is an essential protein that requires a unique amino acid, hypusine, for its activity. Hypusine is formed exclusively in eIF5A post-translationally via two enzymes, deoxyhypusine synthase (DHPS) and deoxyhypusine hydroxylase. Each of the genes encoding these proteins, Eif5a, Dhps, and Dohh, is required for mouse embryonic development. Variants in EIF5A or DHPS were recently identified as the genetic basis underlying certain rare neurodevelopmental disorders in humans. To investigate the roles of eIF5A and DHPS in brain development, we generated four conditional KO mouse strains using the Emx1-Cre or Camk2a-Cre strains and examined the effects of temporal- and region-specific deletion of Eif5a or Dhps. The conditional deletion of Dhps or Eif5a by Emx1 promotor–driven Cre expression (E9.5, in the cortex and hippocampus) led to gross defects in forebrain development, reduced growth, and premature death. On the other hand, the conditional deletion of Dhps or Eif5a by Camk2a promoter–driven Cre expression (postnatal, mainly in the CA1 region of the hippocampus) did not lead to global developmental defects; rather, these KO animals exhibited severe impairment in spatial learning, contextual learning, and memory when subjected to the Morris water maze and a contextual learning test. In both models, the Dhps-KO mice displayed more severe impairment than their Eif5a-KO counterparts. The observed defects in the brain, global development, or cognitive functions most likely result from translation errors due to a deficiency in active, hypusinated eIF5A. Our study underscores the important roles of eIF5A and DHPS in neurodevelopment.
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    Recessive Rare Variants in Deoxyhypusine Synthase, an Enzyme Involved in the Synthesis of Hypusine, Are Associated with a Neurodevelopmental Disorder
    (Elsevier, 2019-02-07) Ganapathi, Mythily; Padgett, Leah R.; Yamada, Kentaro; Devinsky, Orrin; Willaert, Rebecca; Person, Richard; Au, Ping-Yee Billie; Tagoe, Julia; McDonald, Marie; Karlowicz, Danielle; Wolf, Barry; Lee, Joanna; Shen, Yufeng; Okur, Volkan; Deng, Liyong; LeDuc, Charles A.; Wang, Jiayao; Hanner, Ashleigh; Mirmira, Raghavendra G.; Park, Myung Hee; Mastracci, Teresa L.; Chung, Wendy K.; Pediatrics, School of Medicine
    Hypusine is formed post-translationally from lysine and is found in a single cellular protein, eukaryotic translation initiation factor-5A (eIF5A), and its homolog eIF5A2. Biosynthesis of hypusine is a two-step reaction involving the enzymes deoxyhypusine synthase (DHPS) and deoxyhypusine hydroxylase (DOHH). eIF5A is highly conserved throughout eukaryotic evolution and plays a role in mRNA translation, cellular proliferation, cellular differentiation, and inflammation. DHPS is also highly conserved and is essential for life, as Dhps-null mice are embryonic lethal. Using exome sequencing, we identified rare biallelic, recurrent, predicted likely pathogenic variants in DHPS segregating with disease in five affected individuals from four unrelated families. These individuals have similar neurodevelopmental features that include global developmental delay and seizures. Two of four affected females have short stature. All five affected individuals share a recurrent missense variant (c.518A>G [p.Asn173Ser]) in trans with a likely gene disrupting variant (c.1014+1G>A, c.912_917delTTACAT [p.Tyr305_Ile306del], or c.1A>G [p.Met1?]). cDNA studies demonstrated that the c.1014+1G>A variant causes aberrant splicing. Recombinant DHPS enzyme harboring either the p.Asn173Ser or p.Tyr305_Ile306del variant showed reduced (20%) or absent in vitro activity, respectively. We co-transfected constructs overexpressing HA-tagged DHPS (wild-type or mutant) and GFP-tagged eIF5A into HEK293T cells to determine the effect of these variants on hypusine biosynthesis and observed that the p.Tyr305_Ile306del and p.Asn173Ser variants resulted in reduced hypusination of eIF5A compared to wild-type DHPS enzyme. Our data suggest that rare biallelic variants in DHPS result in reduced enzyme activity that limits the hypusination of eIF5A and are associated with a neurodevelopmental disorder.
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    Role of DHS in translation control of islet β-cell replication during high fat induced obesity and glucose intolerance
    (2017-11) Levasseur, Esther Marie; Mirmira, Raghu
    Insulin resistance in liver, muscle, and adipose tissue almost invariably occurs during obesity. To compensate, the insulin-producing β-cell increases insulin production by expanding cellular mass. The inability of the β-cell to fully compensate leads to hyperglycemia and ultimately type 2 diabetes. The enzyme deoxyhypusine synthase (DHS) catalyzes the spermidine-dependent posttranslational modification of Lys50 of eukaryotic translation initiation factor 5A (eIF5A) to form hypusine (Hyp). Studies have demonstrated this modification of eIF5A to contribute to cellular proliferation in cancerous cells, but its role in the physiologic proliferation of islet β-cells is unknown. I hypothesized eIF5A-Hyp to be required for the proliferation of islet β cells during the early phase of insulin resistance, allowing the β-cell to respond to the increased demand for insulin to maintain glucose homeostasis. To test this hypothesis, deletion of DHS was induced post-developmentally in β-cells by crossing Dhs-fl/fl mice with MIP1-CreERT mice, and animals were fed for 1 or 4 weeks with a 60% kcal from fat diet (HFD) or normal chow diet (NCD, 16% kcal from fat diet). NCD-fed and HFD-fed animals had normal glucose homeostasis after one week feeding, regardless of genotype. However, after 4 weeks of HFD, KO mice had significantly worse glucose intolerance compared to control mice. eIF5A-Hyp levels increased in β-cells of control animals and as expected remained low in the KO mice. β-cell proliferation was significantly increased after 1 week of HFD as measured by PCNA staining, however KO mice showed no increase. Cyclin D2 protein, but not mRNA, was increased in control animals fed a HFD; this protein increase was not observed in KO animals. Furthermore, polyribosomal profile of isolated islets of 1 week HFD-fed mice showed the Ccnd2 mRNA bound to the monoribosome fractions in the KO animals compared to the controls, resulting in changes of global translation. Interestingly, Ccnd1 polyribosome to monoribosome ratio showed no changes in translation compared to Ccnd2. Taken together, these results suggest that DHS (and, consequently, eIF5A-Hyp) is necessary for the adaptive proliferative and functional response of β-cells during high fat diet induced obesity and glucose intolerance.