Cysteine dioxygenase: a robust system for regulation of cellular cysteine levels (original) (raw)

Knockout of the murine cysteine dioxygenase gene results in severe impairment in ability to synthesize taurine and an increased catabolism of cysteine to hydrogen sulfide

American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2011

Cysteine homeostasis is dependent on the regulation of cysteine dioxygenase (CDO) in response to changes in sulfur amino acid intake. CDO oxidizes cysteine to cysteinesulfinate, which is further metabolized to either taurine or to pyruvate plus sulfate. To gain insight into the physiological function of CDO and the consequence of a loss of CDO activity, mice carrying a null CDO allele ( CDO+/− mice) were crossed to generate CDO−/−, CDO+/−, and CDO+/+ mice. CDO−/− mice exhibited postnatal mortality, growth deficit, and connective tissue pathology. CDO−/− mice had extremely low taurine levels and somewhat elevated cysteine levels, consistent with the lack of flux through CDO-dependent catabolic pathways. However, plasma sulfate levels were slightly higher in CDO−/− mice than in CDO+/− or CDO+/+ mice, and tissue levels of acid-labile sulfide were elevated, indicating an increase in cysteine catabolism by cysteine desulfhydration pathways. Null mice had lower hepatic cytochrome c oxidas...

Overexpression of cysteine dioxygenase reduces intracellular cysteine and glutathione pools in HepG2/C3A cells

AJP: Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2007

Cysteine levels are carefully regulated in mammals to balance metabolic needs against the potential for cytotoxicity. It has been postulated that one of the major regulators of intracellular cysteine levels in mammals is cysteine dioxygenase (CDO). Hepatic expression of this catabolic enzyme increases dramatically in response to increased cysteine availability and may therefore be part of a homeostatic response to shunt excess toxic cysteine to more benign metabolites such as sulfate or taurine. Direct experimental evidence, however, is lacking to support the hypothesis that CDO is capable of altering steady-state intracellular cysteine levels. In this study, we expressed either the wild-type (WT) or a catalytically inactivated mutant (H86A) isoform of CDO in HepG2/C3A cells (which do not express endogenous CDO protein) and cultured them in different concentrations of extracellular cysteine. WT CDO, but not H86A CDO, was capable of reducing intracellular cysteine levels in cells inc...

Mammalian cysteine metabolism: new insights into regulation of cysteine metabolism

The Journal of nutrition, 2006

The mammalian liver tightly regulates its free cysteine pool, and intracellular cysteine in rat liver is maintained between 20 and 100 nmol/g even when sulfur amino acid intakes are deficient or excessive. By keeping cysteine levels within a narrow range and by regulating the synthesis of glutathione, which serves as a reservoir of cysteine, the liver addresses both the need to have adequate cysteine to support normal metabolism and the need to keep cysteine levels below the threshold of toxicity. Cysteine catabolism is tightly regulated via regulation of cysteine dioxygenase (CDO) levels in the liver, with the turnover of CDO protein being dramatically decreased when intracellular cysteine levels increase. This occurs in response to changes in the intracellular cysteine concentration via changes in the rate of CDO ubiquitination and degradation. Glutathione synthesis also increases when intracellular cysteine levels increase as a result of increased saturation of glutamate-cysteine...

Enzymes and metabolites of cysteine metabolism in nonhepatic tissues of rats show little response to changes in dietary protein or sulfur amino acid levels

The Journal of nutrition, 2002

In liver, cysteine dioxygenase (CDO), cysteinesulfinate decarboxylase (CSD), and gamma-glutamylcysteine synthetase (GCS) play important regulatory roles in the metabolism of cysteine to sulfate, taurine and glutathione. Because glutathione is released by the liver and degraded by peripheral tissues that express gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase, some peripheral tissues may be exposed to relatively high concentrations of cysteine. Rats were fed diets that contained low, moderate or high concentrations of protein or supplemental cysteine or methionine for 2 wk, and CDO, CSD and GCS activities, concentrations and mRNA levels and the concentrations of cysteine, taurine and glutathione were measured in liver, kidney, lung and brain. All three enzymes in liver responded to the differences in dietary protein or sulfur amino acid levels, but only CSD in kidney and none of the three enzymes in lung and brain responded. Renal CSD activity was twice as much in rats fed the low protein diet as in r...

Cysteine is the metabolic signal responsible for dietary regulation of hepatic cysteine dioxygenase and glutamate cysteine ligase in intact rats

The Journal of nutrition, 2003

Cysteine, rather than a precursor or metabolite of cysteine, appears to mediate the upregulation of cysteine dioxygenase (CDO) and the downregulation of glutamate cysteine ligase (GCL) in cultured primary rat hepatocytes. However, similar experiments in intact rats have not been performed to confirm in vivo that changes in hepatic cysteine levels are associated with the regulation of CDO or GCL activity. Therefore, rats were fed a low protein basal diet (100 g casein/kg diet) with or without supplemental sulfur amino acids (8 g cystine, 9 g homocystine or 10 g methionine/kg diet) and with or without propargylglycine (PPG, 1 mmol/kg), an irreversible inhibitor of cystathionine gamma-lyase. Rats were fed the assigned diet for 2 full days and up until the mid-point of the dark cycle on d 3, at which time they were killed for collection of liver. Rats fed the PPG-containing diets had hepatic cystathionine gamma-lyase activities that were approximately 16% of the uninhibited level. PPG t...

5th Amino Acid Assessment Workshop Mammalian Cysteine Metabolism: New Insights into Regulation of Cysteine Metabolism 1,2

The mammalian liver tightly regulates its free cysteine pool, and intracellular cysteine in rat liver is maintained between 20 and 100 nmol/g even when sulfur amino acid intakes are deficient or excessive. By keeping cysteine levels within a narrow range and by regulating the synthesis of glutathione, which serves as a reservoir of cysteine, the liver addresses both the need to have adequate cysteine to support normal metabolism and the need to keep cysteine levels below the threshold of toxicity. Cysteine catabolism is tightly regulated via regulation of cysteine dioxygenase (CDO) levels in the liver, with the turnover of CDO protein being dramatically decreased when intracellular cysteine levels increase. This occurs in response to changes in the intracellular cysteine concentration via changes in the rate of CDO ubiquitination and degradation. Glutathione synthesis also increases when intracellular cysteine levels increase as a result of increased saturation of glutamate-cysteine ligase (GCL) with cysteine, and this contributes to removal of excess cysteine. When cysteine levels drop, GCL activity increases, and the increased capacity for glutathione synthesis facilitates conservation of cysteine in the form of glutathione (although the absolute rate of glutathione synthesis still decreases because of the lack of substrate). This increase in GCL activity is dependent on up-regulation of expression of both the catalytic and modifier subunits of GCL, resulting in an increase in total catalytic subunit plus an increase in the catalytic efficiency of the enzyme. An important role of cysteine utilization for coenzyme A synthesis in maintaining cellular cysteine levels in some tissues, and a possible connection between the necessity of controlling cellular cysteine levels to regulate the rate of hydrogen sulfide production, have been suggested by recent literature and are areas that deserve further study.

Rats fed a low protein diet supplemented with sulfur amino acids have increased cysteine dioxygenase activity and increased taurine production in hepatocytes

The Journal of nutrition, 1995

The metabolism of cysteine and cysteinesulfinate and the activities of key enzymes in cysteine catabolic pathways were investigated in hepatocytes isolated from rats fed a basal (100 g casein/kg) diet or the diet supplemented with L-methionine (3 or 10 g/kg diet) or the sulfur equivalent as L-cystine (2.4 or 8 g/kg diet). Cysteine dioxygenase activity was higher in hepatocytes from rats fed diets with the higher level of sulfur amino acid supplementation, and the higher enzyme activity was paralleled by a greater total catabolite production (taurine + sulfate) from cysteine. Taurine production as a percentage of total cysteine catabolism was significantly greater in hepatocytes from rats fed the diet with excess methionine or cystine (basal, 22%; excess methionine, 61%, excess cystine, 49%). Glutathione production was markedly lower in hepatocytes from rats fed excess sulfur amino acids such that total cysteine utilization was similar for all dietary treatments. Cysteinesulfinate de...

The Cysteine Dioxgenase Knockout Mouse: Altered Cysteine Metabolism in Nonhepatic Tissues Leads to Excess H2S/HS−Production and Evidence of Pancreatic and Lung Toxicity

Antioxidants & Redox Signaling, 2013

Aims: To define the consequences of loss of cysteine dioxygenase (CDO) on cysteine metabolism at the tissue level, we determined levels of relevant metabolites and enzymes and evidence of H 2 S/HS-(gaseous hydrogen sulfide and its conjugate base) toxicity in liver, pancreas, kidney, and lung of CDO-/mice that were fed either a taurine-free or taurine-supplemented diet. Results: CDO-/mice had low tissue and serum taurine and hypotaurine levels and high tissue levels of cysteine, consistent with the loss of CDO. CDO-/mice had elevated urinary excretion of thiosulfate, high tissue and serum cystathionine and lanthionine levels, and evidence of inhibition and destabilization of cytochrome c oxidase, which is consistent with excess production of H 2 S/HS-. Accumulation of cystathionine and lanthionine appeared to result from cystathionine b-synthase (CBS)-mediated cysteine desulfhydration. Very high levels of hypotaurine in pancreas of wild-type mice and very high levels of cystathionine and lanthionine in pancreas of CDO-/mice were observed, suggesting a unique cysteine metabolism in the pancreas. Innovation: The CDO-/mouse model provides new insights into tissue-specific cysteine metabolism, particularly the role of pancreas in metabolism of excess cysteine by CBScatalyzed reactions, and will be a useful model for studying the effects of excess endogenous production of H 2 S/ HS-. Conclusion: The CDO-/mouse clearly demonstrates that H 2 S/HSproduction in tissues can exceed the capacity of the animal to oxidize sulfide to sulfate and demonstrates that pancreas and lung are more susceptible to toxicity from endogenous H 2 S/HSproduction than are liver and kidney.

Ablation of the mammalian methionine sulfoxide reductase A affects the expression level of cysteine deoxygenase

Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, 2007

Methionine sulfoxide reductases (Msrs) are able to reduce methionine sulfoxide to methionine both in proteins and free amino acids. By their action it is possible to regulate the function of specific proteins and the cellular antioxidant defense against oxidative damage. Similarly, cysteine deoxygenase (CDO) may be involved in the regulation of protein function and antioxidant defense mechanisms by its ability to oxidized cysteine residues. The two enzymes' involvement in sulfur amino-acids metabolism seems to be connected. Lack of methionine sulfoxide reductase A (MsrA) in liver of MsrA À / À led to a significant drop in the cellular level of thiol groups and lowered the CDO level of expression. Moreover, following selenium deficient diet (applied to decrease the expression levels of selenoproteins like MsrB), the latter effect was maintained while the basal levels of thiol decreased in both mouse strains. We suggest that both enzymes are working in coordination to balance cellular antioxidant defense.