On the interaction between glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase and airborne particles: Evidence for electrophilic species

Abstract

Many of the adverse health effects of airborne particulate matter (PM) have been attributed to the chemical properties of some of the large number of chemical species present in PM. Some PM component chemicals are capable of generating reactive oxygen species and eliciting a state of oxidative stress. In addition, however, PM can contain chemical species that elicit their effects through covalent bond formation with nucleophilic functions in the cell. In this manuscript, we report the presence of constituents with electrophilic properties in ambient and diesel exhaust particles, demonstrated by their ability to inhibit the thiol enzyme, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH). GAPDH is irreversibly inactivated by electrophiles under anaerobic conditions by covalent bond formation. This inactivation can be blocked by the prior addition of a high concentration of dithiothreitol (DTT) as an alternate nucleophile. Addition of DTT after the reaction between the electrophile and GAPDH, however, does not reverse the inactivation. This property has been utilized to develop a procedure that provides a quantitative measure of electrophiles present in samples of ambient particles collected in the Los Angeles Basin and in diesel exhaust particles. The toxicity of electrophiles is the result of irreversible changes in biological molecules; recovery is dependent on resynthesis. If the resynthesis is slow, the irreversible effects can be cumulative and manifest themselves after chronic exposure to low levels of electrophiles.