Abstract
Acylamino Acid Releasing Enzyme (AARE) catalyzes the N-terminal hydrolysis of Nα-acylpeptide, which releases Nα-acylated amino acids. In mammal it is also active as Oxidized Protein Hydrolase (OPH) which might play an important role in destroying glycated and oxidatively damaged proteins. Using plants expressing high AARE, we analyzed its function in order to clarify whether plant AARE has the OPH activity like animal AARE.
Arabidopsis AARE incorporated transgenic tobacco was generated by Agrobacterium-mediated method. The incorporation of the gene into tobacco genome was confirmed by immunoblot analysis. Transgenic lines of plants showed higher AARE activities than wild-type ones. Subcellular fractionation analysis indicated that AARE of transgenic tobacco localized in cytosol. The presence of AARE in cytosol of nontransgenic Arabidopsis was also confirmed. The levels of oxidized proteins in transgenic lines were compared with those in wild-type. We are examining correlation between acylamino acid releasing activity and accumulation of oxidized proteins.
