Abstract
The lenticular fiber cells are comprised of extremely long-lived proteins while still maintaining an active biochemical state. Dysregulation of these activities has been implicated in diseases such as age-related cataracts. However, the lenticular protein dynamics underlying health and disease is unclear. We sought to measure the global protein turnover rates in the eye using nitrogen-15 labeling of mice and mass spectrometry. We measured the 14N/15N-peptide ratios of 248 lens proteins, including Crystallin, Aquaporin, Collagen and enzymes that catalyze glycolysis and oxidation/reduction reactions. Direct comparison of lens cortex versus nucleus revealed little or no 15N-protein contents in most nuclear proteins, while there were a broad range of 14N/15N ratios in cortex proteins. Unexpectedly, like Crystallins, many enzymes with relatively high abundance in nucleus were also exceedingly long-lived. The slow replacement of these enzymes in spite of young age of mice suggests their potential roles in age-related metabolic changes in the lens.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Institutes of Health (R01AG061787)
- Jeffrey N Savas
National Institutes of Health (R21AI131087)
- Jing Jin
National Institutes of Health (R01EY025799)
- Jing Jin
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: All animal procedures were approved by Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the Northwestern University (approved protocol number IS00000429 and IS00000862).
Reviewing Editor
- Jeremy Nathans, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, United States
Publication history
- Received: July 12, 2019
- Accepted: December 4, 2019
- Accepted Manuscript published: December 10, 2019 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: December 16, 2019 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2019, Liu et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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