Title
The anti-inflammatory peptide Ac-SDKP is released from thymosin-β4 by renal meprin-α and prolyl oligopeptidase
Recommended Citation
Kumar N, Nakagawa P, Janic B, Romero CA, Worou ME, Monu SR, Peterson EL, Shaw J, Valeriote F, Ongeri EM, Niyitegeka JV, Rhaleb NE, Carretero OA. The anti-inflammatory peptide Ac-SDKP is released from thymosin beta4 by renal meprin alpha and prolyl oligopeptidase. Am J Physiol Renal Physiol. 2016 May 15;310(10):F1026-34.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-15-2016
Publication Title
American journal of physiology. Renal physiology
Abstract
N-acetyl-seryl-aspartyl-lysyl-proline (Ac-SDKP) is a natural tetrapeptide with anti-inflammatory and antifibrotic properties. Previously, we have shown that prolyl oligopeptidase (POP) is involved in the Ac-SDKP release from thymosin-β4 (Tβ4). However, POP can only hydrolyze peptides shorter than 30 amino acids, and Tβ4 is 43 amino acids long. This indicates that before POP hydrolysis takes place, Tβ4 is hydrolyzed by another peptidase that releases NH2-terminal intermediate peptide(s) with fewer than 30 amino acids. Our peptidase database search pointed out meprin-α metalloprotease as a potential candidate. Therefore, we hypothesized that, prior to POP hydrolysis, Tβ4 is hydrolyzed by meprin-α. In vitro, we found that the incubation of Tβ4 with both meprin-α and POP released Ac-SDKP, whereas no Ac-SDKP was released when Tβ4 was incubated with either meprin-α or POP alone. Incubation of Tβ4 with rat kidney homogenates significantly released Ac-SDKP, which was blocked by the meprin-α inhibitor actinonin. In addition, kidneys from meprin-α knockout (KO) mice showed significantly lower basal Ac-SDKP amount, compared with wild-type mice. Kidney homogenates from meprin-α KO mice failed to release Ac-SDKP from Tβ4. In vivo, we observed that rats treated with the ACE inhibitor captopril increased plasma concentrations of Ac-SDKP, which was inhibited by the coadministration of actinonin (vehicle, 3.1 ± 0.2 nmol/l; captopril, 15.1 ± 0.7 nmol/l; captopril + actinonin, 6.1 ± 0.3 nmol/l; P < 0.005). Similar results were obtained with urinary Ac-SDKP after actinonin treatment. We conclude that release of Ac-SDKP from Tβ4 is mediated by successive hydrolysis involving meprin-α and POP.
Medical Subject Headings
Animals; Blood Pressure; Captopril; Hydroxamic Acids; Kidney; Male; Metalloendopeptidases; Mice, Inbred C57BL; Mice, Knockout; Oligopeptides; Random Allocation; Rats, Sprague-Dawley; Serine Endopeptidases; Thymosin
PubMed ID
26962108
Volume
310
Issue
10
First Page
1026
Last Page
1034
