Abstract

Psoralen and ultraviolet A light (PUVA) are used to kill pathogens in blood products and as a treatment of aberrant cell proliferation in dermatitis, cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, and graft-versus-host disease. DNA damage is well described, but the direct effects of PUVA on cell signal transduction are poorly understood. Because platelets are anucleate and contain archetypal signal transduction machinery, they are ideally suited to address this. Lipidomics on platelet membrane extracts showed that psoralen forms adducts with unsaturated carbon bonds of fatty acyls in all major phospholipid classes after PUVA. Such adducts increased lipid packing as measured by a blue shift of an environment-sensitive fluorescent probe in model liposomes. Furthermore, the interaction of these liposomes with lipid order-sensitive proteins like amphipathic lipid-packing sensor and α-synuclein was inhibited by PUVA. In platelets, PUVA caused poor membrane binding of Akt and Bruton's tyrosine kinase effectors following activation of the collagen glycoprotein VI and thrombin protease-activated receptor (PAR) 1. This resulted in defective Akt phosphorylation despite unaltered phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5-trisphosphate levels. Downstream integrin activation was furthermore affected similarly by PUVA following PAR1 (effective half-maximal concentration (EC50), 8.4 ± 1.1 versus 4.3 ± 1.1 μm) and glycoprotein VI (EC50, 1.61 ± 0.85 versus 0.26 ± 0.21 μg/ml) but not PAR4 (EC50, 50 ± 1 versus 58 ± 1 μm) signal transduction. Our findings were confirmed in T-cells from graft-versus-host disease patients treated with extracorporeal photopheresis, a form of systemic PUVA. In conclusion, PUVA increases the order of lipid phases by covalent modification of phospholipids, thereby inhibiting membrane recruitment of effector kinases.

Highlights

  • Psoralen and ultraviolet A light (PUVA) are used to kill pathogens in blood products and as a treatment of aberrant cell proliferation in dermatitis, cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, and graftversus-host disease

  • Our findings were confirmed in T-cells from graft-versus-host disease patients treated with extracorporeal photopheresis, a form of systemic PUVA

  • Mass spectrometry of platelet membrane extracts confirmed that PUVA causes amotosalen-lipid adduct formation, which was not found in control cells that were incubated with this psoralen in the dark (Fig. 1, a and b)

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Summary

Edited by George Carman

Psoralen and ultraviolet A light (PUVA) are used to kill pathogens in blood products and as a treatment of aberrant cell proliferation in dermatitis, cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, and graftversus-host disease. Lipidomics on platelet membrane extracts showed that psoralen forms adducts with unsaturated carbon bonds of fatty acyls in all major phospholipid classes after PUVA. PUVA caused poor membrane binding of Akt and Bruton’s tyrosine kinase effectors following activation of the collagen glycoprotein VI and thrombin protease-activated receptor (PAR) 1. The net effect of PUVA in a cellular milieu is unlikely to be restricted to consequences of its chemistry with solely DNA as was Psoralens are linear furanocoumarins Their heterocyclic aromatic core reversibly intercalates in nucleic acid clefts of cell. Effects of Psoralen and UVA Light on Signal Transduction acknowledged already in the late seventies [8] This random reaction with multiple biomolecules explains why the quest for understanding PUVA and optimizing therapies has been exceptionally challenging. Our findings are not restricted to platelets because T-lymphocytes in patient samples treated with ECP displayed attenuation of Akt phosphorylation as well

Results
Discussion
Experimental Procedures

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