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J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 283, Issue 12, 7346-7353, March 21, 2008
Escherichia coli YqhD Exhibits Aldehyde Reductase Activity and Protects from the Harmful Effect of Lipid Peroxidation-derived Aldehydes*From the Laboratorio de Microbiología Molecular, Departamento de Biología, Facultad de Química y Biología, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Santiago 9170019, Chile
Received for publication, October 26, 2007 , and in revised form, January 16, 2008.
Evidence that Escherichia coli YqhD is involved in bacterial response to compounds that generate membrane lipid peroxidation is presented. Overexpression of yqhD results in increased resistance to the reactive oxygen species-generating compounds hydrogen peroxide, paraquat, chromate, and potassium tellurite. Increased tolerance was also observed for the lipid peroxidation-derived aldehydes butanaldehyde, propanaldehyde, acrolein, and malondialdehyde and the membrane-peroxidizing compound tert-butylhydroperoxide. Expression of yqhD was also associated with changes in the concentration of intracellular peroxides and cytoplasmic protein carbonyl content and with a reduction in intracellular acrolein levels. When compared with the wild type strain, an yqhD mutant exhibited a sensitive phenotype to all these compounds and also augmented levels of thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances, which may indicate an increased level of lipid peroxidation. Purified YqhD catalyzes the in vitro reduction of acetaldehyde, malondialdehyde, propanaldehyde, butanaldehyde, and acrolein in a NADPH-dependent reaction. Finally, yqhD transcription was induced in cells that had been exposed to conditions favoring lipid peroxidation. Taken together these results indicate that this enzyme may have a physiological function by protecting the cell against the toxic effect of aldehydes derived from lipid oxidation. We speculate that in Escherichia coli YqhD is part of a glutathione-independent, NADPH-dependent response mechanism to lipid peroxidation.
Oxidative stress is detrimental to a number of cellular macromolecules including proteins, nucleic acids, and membrane lipids. In eukaryotic organisms oxidative modification of cellular constituents has been implicated in the etiology of different pathological conditions such as diabetes, cataracts, pulmonary emphysema, arthritis, cancer, and aging (1, 2).
The electron-transport chain provides a constant supply of reactive oxygen species (ROS).4 Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), superoxide (
Except for mechanisms involved in membrane peroxidation, prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells use similar mechanisms to respond to oxidative stress. Lipid oxidation is a common consequence of the activity of free radicals on cell membrane components. Oxidation of polyunsaturated fatty acids by HO2, the protonated form of superoxide anion, or OH· leads to the formation of lipid peroxides (7). Enzymatic or chemical degradation of lipid peroxides results in the generation of toxic breakdown products like short-chain (C3-C9) aldehydes such as 2-alkenals ( Mammalian cells use three distinct systems to cope with the harmful effect of reactive aldehydes. The glutathione S-transferase pathway fueled by the GSH or thioredoxin redox cycle conjugates aldehydes with glutathione (GSH), the aldo-keto reductase system reduces aldehydes to alcohols, and alcohol and aldehyde dehydrogenases oxidize aldehydes to carboxyl groups. In animals, the main detoxification pathway is GSH-dependent, and it has been shown that the alcohol/aldehyde dehydrogenase and glutathione S-transferase pathways account for 10 and 55% of aldehyde elimination by hepatocytes, respectively (15). Because the major peroxidation substrate, polyunsaturated fatty acid, is found at very low levels in bacterial membranes, peroxidation of prokaryotic membranes has been a matter of controversy. Increasing experimental evidence suggesting that lipid peroxidation is physiologically important in microorganisms has been reported during the last few years. Bacterial accumulation of reactive aldehydes has been demonstrated in cells exposed to tert-butylhydroperoxide (t-BOOH), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), potassium tellurite (K2TeO3), and titanium oxide (TiO2) (4, 16–18). It has been proposed that members of the ubiquitous thiol peroxidase thiol-dependent antioxidant/AhpC family participate in protecting E. coli against alkyl and lipid hydroperoxides (19) such as alkyl hydroperoxidase reductase, bacterioferrin comigratory protein, and periplasmic thiol peroxidase. However, direct experimental evidence for specific defense systems against lipid peroxidation-derived aldehydes in bacteria have not been reported to date. Sulzenbacher et al. (20) determined the crystal structure of a new E. coli dehydrogenase, YqhD, whose physiological substrates could not be determined. Based mainly on the bound coenzyme, NADP(OH)2, they proposed a putative relationship between YqhD and oxidative stress. Genomic and proteomic studies have shown that YqhD is expressed in E. coli after exposure to stress conditions such as cold shock (21), nutrient starving (22), and oxidative stress generated by the Curvularia peroxidase system (23). YqhD has several features similar to AdhE, an alcohol/aldehyde dehydrogenase involved in fermentative metabolism in E. coli for which an antioxidant function under aerobic conditions has been proposed (24).
We have found that YqhD is induced under tellurite exposure, suggesting that it is involved in bacterial response to oxidative stress. In this work we show that E. coli YqhD is an aldehyde reductase involved in resistance to ROS-generating compounds and reactive aldehydes. Evidence to confirm that YqhD catalyzes the NADPH-dependent reduction of various membrane peroxidation-derived aldehydes, including acrolein and MDA, is provided. Increased levels of thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBARs) and acrolein are found in Results suggest that YqhD is part of a specific defense mechanism against reactive aldehydes generated by membrane peroxidation in E. coli. To our knowledge, this is the first communication describing that such mechanism might be used by bacteria to cope with the toxicity of membrane lipid peroxidation-derived aldehydes.
Strains and Plasmids—E. coli strains and plasmids used in this study are listed in Table 1. E. coli BW25113 yqhD, harboring a KanR insertion in the chromosomal yqhD gene, was kindly provided by the NARA Institute, Japan.
Cloning and Expression of yqhD and Protein Purification—Plasmid pBAD yqhD was constructed by cloning the PCR-amplified E. coli yqhD gene fragment into the expression vector pBAD TOPO (Invitrogen). E. coli BW25113 chromosomal DNA and primers described in Table 1 was used to amplify the yqhD gene. The PCR product was ligated to the cloning vector, and the resulting plasmid pBAD yqhD was introduced into E. coli Top10 by electroporation. Insert orientation was confirmed by NcoI digestion, and gene integrity was determined by nucleotide sequencing. Plasmid pBAD yqhD was then mobilized into E. coli BW25113 to carry out the resistance studies reported in this work. E. coli BL21(DE3) cells harboring plasmid pDEST17 yqhD (a generous gift of Dr. C. Cambillau, CNRS, Marseille, France) were used to purify YqhD. After 5 h of induction with isopropyl 1-thio-β-D-galactopyranoside (1 mM), cells were harvested, resuspended in buffer 50 mM Tris-HCl, pH 7.0, and subjected to sonic disruption. Nucleic acids were precipitated with streptomycin sulfate (2%, w/v) on ice. After centrifuging at 13,000 x g for 5 min, the supernatant was loaded onto a Ni2+ column (nickel-nitrilotriacetic acid). Proteins were eluted with 0.5 M imidazole and fractionated by SDS-PAGE to estimate protein purity. Assay for YqhD Dehydrogenase—The reaction mixture contained 50 mM potassium phosphate buffer, pH 7.0, 2 mM NADPH, a defined aldehyde (acetaldehyde, propanal, or butanal), or alcohol (butanol, propanol or isopropanol) as substrate and purified YqhD (10 µg/ml). The mixture was incubated for 2 min at 37 °C, and NADPH oxidation was determined at 340 nm using a UV-Visible Agilent 8453 spectrophotometer. One unit of enzyme activity was defined as the amount of protein that oxidizes 1 pmol of NADPH/min at 37 °C. Minimal Inhibitory Concentrations—Cells from overnight cultures were diluted 100-fold with fresh LB medium. Ten µl of this dilution were used to inoculate 1 ml of LB medium containing the appropriate antibiotics (Kan and/or Amp) and the toxics to be tested. Cells were grown for 48 h at 37 °C with shaking.
Peroxide Intracellular Levels—The oxidant-sensitive probe 2',7'-dichlorodihydrofluorescein diacetate was used to measure peroxide levels in cells exposed to potassium tellurite (0.5 µg/ml), hydrogen peroxide (1 mM), paraquat (50 µg/ml), or chromate (1 mM) (24). Cells were grown under aerobic conditions in LB medium amended with the compounds to be tested to an A600 Protein Carbonylation—Protein carbonyl content was determined according to Semchyshyn et al. (18). Nucleic acid-free extracts (100 µl) prepared from E. coli BW25113 cells treated and untreated for 30 min with K2TeO3 (0.5 µg/ml) or H2O2 (100 µM) were mixed with four volumes of 10 mM dinitrophenylhydrazine (dissolved in 2 M HCl) and incubated for 1 h at room temperature with vortexing every 10–15 min. Proteins were precipitated by adding 500 µl of 20% trichloroacetic acid and sedimented at 14,000 x g for 5 min. The pellet was washed at least 3 times with 1:1 ethanol:ethyl acetate to remove any unreacted dinitrophenylhydrazine. Finally, the pellet was dissolved at 37 °C in 450 µl of 50 mM dithiothreitol in 6 M guanidine HCl. Carbonyl content was determined spectrophotometrically at 370 nm using a molar absorption coefficient of 22,000 M–1 cm–1 (18).
TBARs—TBARs were determined in cell extracts as described by Semchyshyn et al. (18). Cells were grown at 37 °C in LB media to an A600
RNA Purification and Quantitative Real Time (qRT)-PCR—RNA purification was carried out using the Qiagen RNeasy kit (Qiagen). E. coli BW25113 cultures were diluted 1:100, inoculated in 200 ml of LB medium, and incubated at 37 °C with shaking to an A600
Two µl of total RNA ( Acrolein Concentration—Acrolein concentration was determined as described by Slininger and Bothast (26). Acrolein reacts with tryptophan yielding a purple complex absorbing at 560 nm. Commercially available acrolein (Sigma) was used to standardize the assay and to make a calibration curve. "Tryptophan solution" consisted of tryptophan (2.05 g), 4.17 ml of 8.9 M HCl, and 2.5 ml of toluene in 1 liter of bi-distilled water. Approximately 300 µl of crude extracts (or acrolein standard) were mixed with 600 µl of 8.9 M HCl and 1.5 ml of tryptophan solution. Duplicated samples were incubated for 20 min at 40 °C until a purple color developed and became stable. A560 was determined spectrophotometrically.
YqhD Mediates Resistance to ROS Elicitors in E. coli—To determine whether YqhD plays a role in resistance to oxidative damage, minimal inhibitory concentrations for different ROS-generating compounds for E. coli strains lacking ( yqhD) and overexpressing the yqhD gene (pBAD yqhD) were determined (Table 2). Although cells overexpressing yqhD showed increased tolerance to compounds whose toxicity involves superoxide generation like paraquat and potassium tellurite (4, 27), the hydroxyl radical-generating chromate anion (5), and hydrogen peroxide, E. coli yqhD showed increased sensitivity to all these compounds (Table 2). To assess whether YqhD-mediated resistance phenotype was also related to cytoplasm thiol depletion (especially GSH), the effect of YqhD on E. coli resistance to oxidant compounds that involve thiol oxidation like diamide and cadmium chloride (28) was determined. All E. coli strains tested exhibited similar resistance levels to these compounds, confirming the idea that YqhD protects E. coli from ROS-generated damage.
YqhD Is a NADPH-dependent Aldehyde Reductase—YqhD exhibits 40–50% sequence similarity with a number of bacterial alcohol dehydrogenases. However, it did not show any detectable enzymatic activity when tested with short-chain alcohols as substrates (20). In our hands, purified YqhD did not show NADP+-dependent dehydrogenase activity on methanol, ethanol, propanol, butanol, or isopropanol (not shown). YqhD showed enzymatic activity with short-chain aldehydes including a few with unsaturations or hydroxylations. Km values ranged from 0.67 mM for butanaldehyde to 28.5 mM for acetaldehyde. The kcat value was similar for all substrates (Table 3).
yqhD Elimination Increases TBARs Levels in E. coli—TBARs are routinely used to estimate malondialdehyde content. They can also indicate the presence of a series of reactive aldehydes that are mainly generated during lipid peroxidation (17, 18, 25). We have previously shown that E. coli cells exposed to H2O2 or K2TeO3 have increased levels of TBARs (4). E. coli yqhD exhibited increased content of TBARs even when H2O2 or K2TeO3 were not added to the culture, suggesting that YqhD may function in controlling the amount of membrane peroxidation products that are generated during the normal basal metabolism. E. coli yqhD showed 2-(H2O2) and 4-fold (K2TeO3) TBARs increases when compared with the wild type strain, indicating that YqhD affects the content of reactive aldehydes within the cell (Fig. 1).
Elimination of yqhD Alters the Intracellular Level of Peroxides—The oxidation-sensitive probe 2',7'-dichlorodihydrofluorescein diacetate was used to estimate the level of cytoplasmic peroxides in E. coli pBAD yqhD and E. coli yqhD. Probe activation was monitored in the presence or absence of the ROS-generating compounds K2TeO3, H2O2, paraquat, and chromate. E. coli cells lacking the yqhD gene showed an important increase in probe activation as compared with the wild type counterpart even in the absence of any compound. Overexpression of yqhD resulted in decreased peroxide levels in untreated cells. Peroxide levels were similar in wild type and pBAD yqhD cells (Fig. 2).
YqhD Protects E. coli from Protein Oxidation—Formation of carbonyl groups in proteins, a consequence of ROS and reactive aldehydes, is a commonly used marker to estimate oxidative stress. Anti-dinitrophenylhydrazine Western blotting was used to estimate the extent of protein oxidation. Analysis of cytoplasmic protein extracts revealed that protein carbonylation in E. coli
YqhD Alters Acrolein Concentration in E. coli—Acrolein is a highly reactive, toxic aldehyde that has been described as a membrane peroxidation product in eukaryotic cells. Tellurite-, hydrogen peroxide-, or paraquat-mediated stress resulted in increased concentrations of acrolein in E. coli (Fig. 4). Acrolein content was proportional to the amount of K2TeO3, H2O2, or methyl viologen used to stress the cells (not shown). E. coli
Overexpression of yqhD Slightly Increases E. coli Resistance to Aldehydes Generated during Lipid Peroxidation—To assess the physiological relevance of YqhD in vivo, E. coli resistance to aldehydes generated during membrane peroxidation was determined. E. coli resistance to acetaldehyde, propanal, butanal, and acrolein doubled as result of yqhD overexpression. A
The effect of yqhD expression on E. coli resistance to the classic membrane-peroxidizing compound t-BOOH was also determined. The hypersensitive phenotype to t-BOOH exhibited by E. coli yqhD was reverted by genetic complementation. Overexpression of yqhD resulted in a significant increase in t-BOOH resistance (Table 4), again suggesting that YqhD is involved in E. coli defense against membrane lipid peroxidation.
Transcription of yqhD Is Induced in Response to Conditions That Favor Lipid Peroxidation—Induction of yqhD transcription in response to the oxidative stress elicitors K2TeO3 and paraquat was evaluated by qRT-PCR. Cp were determined for treated and untreated cells. A "Cp induction" value was defined as the difference between the Cp values obtained in each condition (see under "Experimental Procedures" for details). Increased amounts of yqhD mRNA were evidenced in cells exposed to individual toxics when compared with unexposed wild type cells (Table 5). Cp values for yqhD mRNA was
The yqhD Promoter Contains a Putative SoxS Binding Site—A putative SoxS binding site (CGTAATTTCTTAGGAATA) sharing 76% sequence identity with a SoxS binding sequence previously found in E. coli was identified 172 bp upstream of the yqhD ATG start codon (Promoter prediction program). Significant induction of yqhD mRNA synthesis was observed in E. coli lacking SoxS (Table 5), suggesting that induction of yqhD transcription is rather SoxS-independent.
Our interests in bacterial resistance to potassium tellurite lead us to investigate the synthesis of YqhD in E. coli grown in telluriteamended media. We found that YqhD was highly induced when cells were grown in the presence of K2TeO3. This result and the fact that an important pathway of tellurite toxicity involves superoxide generation (4, 27) prompted us to evaluate the role that YqhD could have in E. coli resistance to tellurite and other oxidative stress elicitors.
To assess whether YqhD exhibits a general antioxidant function or a rather specific effect on ROS-caused oxidation, resistance to several oxidant agents was evaluated. E. coli resistance to ROS elicitors was directly related with yqhD expression. Bacterial resistance to oxidants like diamide or CdCl2 that do not involve ROS generation was not related to yqhD expression (Table 2). These results suggested that YqhD may play an antioxidant role by protecting E. coli from the oxidative damage caused specifically by ROS. This YqhD function would be of particular importance when cells encounter compounds that generate superoxide (tellurite) or hydroxyl radicals (chromate) (4, 5) since these toxics also affect cytoplasmic GSH levels (9, 29, 30). In this context, the hypersensitive phenotype to K2TeO3 and K2Cr2O7 observed in E. coli
Sulzenbacher et al. (20) have reported the crystal structure of E. coli alcohol dehydrogenase YqhD, and based on the special features exhibited by the bound NADPH cofactor (hydroxyl groups substituting the C5 and C6 carbons of the nicotinamide ring), they suggested a connection between YqhD and oxidative stress. Taking into account that YqhD shares similarity with a number of aldehyde dehydrogenases and the report by Zhang et al. (31) indicating that YqhD would be able of catalyzing the reduction of the toxic aldehyde 3-hydroxypropanaldehyde, we hypothesized that the antioxidant effect of YqhD could be related to reactive aldehydes generated by membrane lipid peroxidation. To test this assumption, YqhD was purified to homogeneity, and a number of potential substrates for the enzyme were tested in the presence of NADPH. Kinetic parameters determined for YqhD showed that the enzyme is active with propanaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and butanaldehyde (Table 3). YqhD activity was also observed for the highly toxic aldehydes acrolein and MDA produced mainly during lipid peroxidation (2, 32). No activity was detected with short and medium chain alcohols. These results differ from those of Sulzenbacher et al. (20) who found that YqhD had no aldehyde dehydrogenase activity with acetaldehyde, butanaldehyde, and propanaldehyde. These authors also determined that YqhD exhibited the highest affinity with medium chain alcohols like propanol, butanol, and hexanol (Km values 5–30 mM) suggesting that these compounds were not true substrates of the enzyme. We found that YqhD exhibited significant affinity for aldehydes (Km values 0.6–4 mM for the best substrates) (Table 2). Based on the toxicity of the ROS elicitors K2TeO3 and K2Cr2O7, which involves a strong effect in depleting the cellular GSH pool, we hypothesized that the observed YqhD activity with aldehydes could be of physiological relevance. In this context, detoxification of K2TeO3 and K2Cr2O7 by E. coli (Table 3) corroborates our in vitro determinations and confirms that YqhD has aldehyde dehydrogenase activity on acrolein and MDA. Kinetic parameters determined for YqhD are consistent with those reported for a number of aldehyde dehydrogenases acting on reactive aldehydes produced by lipid peroxidation both in plant and mammalian cells (33, 34). However, although our results strongly support the idea that the enzyme functions as an aldehyde reductase in vivo as well as in vitro, the possibility of YqhD using other, yet unknown substrates in addition to acetaldehyde, propanaldehyde, butanaldehyde, MDA, and acrolein cannot be excluded.
Membrane peroxidation has been reported in bacteria exposed to oxidants like t-BOOH, TiO2, H2O2, and K2TeO3 (4, 16–18). Determination of TBARs is routinely used to measure the major aldehyde produced during lipid peroxidation, MDA. To evaluate the role of YqhD in regulating the levels of reactive aldehydes, TBARs content was determined in E. coli To further investigate the relationship that may exist between YqhD aldehyde dehydrogenase activity observed in vitro and the level of reactive aldehydes generated by lipid peroxidation in vivo, we determined acrolein concentration in cells exposed to various ROS elicitors. Acrolein, or 2-propenal, is a highly toxic aldehyde generated as a byproduct during membrane peroxidation (32). Although acrolein generation has been scantily described in bacteria to date, its lethal effect for prokaryotes has been clearly demonstrated (13, 14). We found that E. coli exposed to H2O2, paraquat, K2Cr2O7, and K2TeO3 exhibited increased acrolein concentration (Fig. 4). As expected, cells that were exposed to low temperatures, a condition that increases membrane polyunsaturated fatty acid content (36), showed increased acrolein content (not shown) linking oxidative stress with acrolein production in E. coli. These results confirm that the aldehyde reductase activity of YqhD observed in vitro is probably related to the in vivo concentration of YqhD substrates. Lipid hydroperoxides are intermediates of membrane lipid peroxidation that can generate reactive aldehydes (7, 8). Lipid hydroperoxides exhibit increased polarity and long lifetimes as compared with free radical intermediates, thus facilitating their interaction with intracellular targets (37). To cope with this highly reactive molecules, cells produce catalases, peroxidases, and/or glutathione transferases that transform peroxides in more stable molecules or unreactive adducts (19). We found that expression of yqhD directly affects intracellular peroxide levels in E. coli exposed to H2O2, K2TeO3, K2Cr2O7, or paraquat. Cells incapable of producing yqhD showed an increased concentration of intracellular peroxides suggesting that YqhD plays an important role in detoxifying reactive aldehydes that could increase intracellular peroxide generation or affect cellular defenses. This idea is consistent with the observation that cells overexpressing yqhD exhibited decreased levels of intracellular peroxides.
Another common marker used to assess oxidative stress is carbonyl group formation in proteins. This results from amino acid side chain modification preferentially caused by ROS and reactive aldehydes (18, 38). Because E. coli
The respiratory electron transport chain is a major (and continuous) source of ROS in bacteria (3, 19). The "naturally generated" reactive oxygen species would be responsible for the increased levels of TBARs and oxidized protein found in E. coli
Because in this work yqhD expression has been related to ROS resistance, TBARs, acrolein, peroxide, and especially oxidized protein levels, we hypothesized that the role of YqhD aldehyde reductase is to protect cytoplasmic macromolecules from aldehyde-mediated oxidation. E. coli resistance to lipid peroxidation-generated aldehydes revealed a correlation between yqhD expression and bacterial resistance, especially to acrolein (Table 4). These results are in agreement with the observed effect of yqhD on acrolein concentration in vivo as well as with enzyme activity exhibited by the purified protein. As proof that YqhD substrates come from membrane lipid peroxidation, we evaluated E. coli t-BOOH resistance. Although yqhD overexpression resulted in increased resistance, cells lacking yqhD showed a hypersensitive phenotype to this peroxide. Because the lipid peroxidation pathway includes an elongation step in which oxygen reacts with a carbonyl radical to generate a lipoperoxide radical (41), we carried out K2TeO3 and H2O2 resistance analyses in E. coli under anaerobic conditions. No differences in resistance to K2TeO3 and H2O2 were observed between wt and yqhD-overexpressing cells in the absence of oxygen. TBAR determination suggested that lipid peroxidation does not occur in this condition, indicating that toxic YqhD substrates are not generated (unpublished results).5 Transcription activation of the yqhD gene has been observed in cells treated with the oxidant Curvularia haloperoxidase system (23) when exposed to cold shock (21) or when grown in a limited-nutrient medium (22). Here we demonstrate that yqhD is also induced in cells exposed to conditions favoring lipid peroxidation, as are treatments with the ROS elicitors K2TeO3, H2O2, or paraquat or with the membrane lipid-peroxidating compound t-BOOH.
A highly conserved SoxS binding motif was identified in the promoter region of the yqhD gene (not shown). qRT-PCR studies carried out using RNA from wt and In humans, a number of enzymes using cytotoxic reactive aldehydes as substrates have been described. As YqhD, these enzymes react with acrolein and MDA among others and are thought to form part of oxidative defense mechanisms able to neutralize the toxic effects of these lipid peroxidation-derived reactive aldehydes in heart (42), kidney (43), brain (44), and arterial tissues (45). Some mechanistic insights have been communicated in Arabidopsis thaliana where a NADPH quinone oxidoreductase (P1-ZCR) has been involved in the detoxification of lipid peroxidation-derived reactive aldehydes (33). The authors proposed that this protein was part of a defense mechanism against oxidative stress by scavenging highly toxic lipid peroxidation-derived unsaturated aldehydes as acrolein and 4-hydroxynonenal. In addition, a NADPH-dependent AKR1C1 protein, which is induced by Michael acceptors and oxidative stress and that exhibits aldehyde reductase activity involved in cellular protection against reactive aldehydes, has been reported in humans (34). To date no specific defense pathway dealing with lipid peroxidation-derived reactive aldehydes has been reported in bacteria. The results of this work allow us to speculate that YqhD is part of a response mechanism against lipid peroxidation-derived aldehydes. The role we propose for YqhD is especially relevant for E. coli cells that are stressed by ROS elicitors and by compounds that produce GSH oxidation. As mentioned before, the first cell defense mechanism coping with lipid peroxidation products is GSH-dependent and consists in a set of glutathione S-transferases, catalases, and peroxidases. In cells exposed to K2TeO3 or K2Cr2O7, two compounds that deplete the intracellular GSH pool and generate ROS-mediated lipid peroxidation, this first defense mechanism would be absent because of glutathione oxidation. In this context, the GSH-independent, NADPH-dependent YqhD putative mechanism described here would be highly relevant in protecting the bacterial cell from being damaged by MDA, acrolein, and other aldehydes. In the absence of GSH, YqhD and probably other yet unknown aldehyde dehydrogenases or aldehyde reductases would act as cytosolic barriers against toxic products generated during lipid peroxidation in E. coli.
* This work received financial support from Fondo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia Grant 1060022 and by Dicyt (Universidad de Santiago de Chile) grants (to C. C. V.). The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
1 Recipient of a doctoral fellowship from Mejoramiento de la Calidad y la Equidad de la Educacion Superior (MECESUP).
2 Recipient of a doctoral fellowship from Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia. 3 To whom correspondence should be addressed: Laboratorio de Microbiología Molecular, Departamento de Biología, Facultad de Química y Biología, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Casilla 40, Correo 33, Santiago, Chile. Tel.: 56-2-681-0357; Fax: 56-2-681-2108; E-mail: cvasquez{at}usach.cl.
4 The abbreviations used are: ROS, reactive oxygen species; MDA, malondialdehyde; t-BOOH, tert-butylhydroperoxide; TBAR, thiobarbituric acid-reactive substance; qRT, quantitative real time; Cp, crossing point; wt, wild type.
5 J. Manuel Pérez, F. A. Arenas, G. A. Pradenas, J. M. Sandoval, and C. C. Vásquez, unpublished results.
We are indebted to Dr. James A. Imlay and to Dr. Sergio E. Pichuantes for helpful suggestions and critical reading of the manuscript.
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