Significance: The imino acid proline is utilized by different organisms to offset cellular imbalances caused by environmental stress. The wide use in nature of proline as a stress adaptor molecule indicates that proline has a fundamental biological role in stress response. Understanding the mechanisms by which proline enhances abiotic/biotic stress response will facilitate agricultural crop research and improve human health. Recent Advances: It is now recognized that proline metabolism propels cellular signaling processes that promote cellular apoptosis or survival. Studies have shown that proline metabolism influences signaling pathways by increasing reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation in the mitochondria via the electron transport chain. Enhanced ROS production due to proline metabolism has been implicated in the hypersensitive response in plants, lifespan extension in worms, and apoptosis, tumor suppression, and cell survival in animals. Critical Issues: The ability of proline to influence disparate cellular outcomes may be governed by ROS levels generated in the mitochondria. Defining the threshold at which proline metabolic enzyme expression switches from inducing survival pathways to cellular apoptosis would provide molecular insights into cellular redox regulation by proline. Are ROS the only mediators of proline metabolic signaling or are other factors involved? Future Directions: New evidence suggests that proline biosynthesis enzymes interact with redox proteins such as thioredoxin. An important future pursuit will be to identify other interacting partners of proline metabolic enzymes to uncover novel regulatory and signaling networks of cellular stress response. Antioxid. Redox Signal. 19, 998-1011.

The potential of proline to suppress reactive oxygen species (ROS) and apoptosis in mammalian cells was tested by manipulating intracellular proline levels exogenously and endogenously by overexpression of proline metabolic enzymes. Proline was observed to protect cells against H 2 O 2 , tert-butyl hydroperoxide and a carcinogenic oxidative stress inducer but was not effective against superoxide generators such as menadione. Oxidative stress protection by proline requires the secondary amine of the pyrrolidine ring and involves preservation of the glutathione redox environment. Overexpression of proline dehydrogenase (PRODH), a mitochondrial flavoenzyme that oxidizes proline, resulted in 6-fold lower intracellular proline content and decreased cell survival relative to control cells. Cells overexpressing PRODH were rescued by pipecolate, an analog that mimics the antioxidant properties of proline, and by tetrahydro-2-furoic acid, a specific inhibitor of PRODH. In contrast, overexpression of the proline biosynthetic enzymes Δ 1 -pyrroline-5-carboxylate (P5C) synthetase (P5CS) and P5C reductase (P5CR) resulted in 2-fold higher proline content, significantly lower ROS levels and increased cell survival relative to control cells. In different mammalian cell lines exposed to physiological H 2 O 2 levels, increased endogenous P5CS and P5CR expression was observed indicating upregulation of proline biosynthesis is an oxidative stress response.

Proline dehydrogenase (PRODH) and ⌬ 1 -pyrroline-5-carboxylate dehydrogenase (P5CDH) catalyze the two-step oxidation of proline to glutamate. They are distinct monofunctional enzymes in all eukaryotes and some bacteria but are fused into bifunctional enzymes known as proline utilization A (PutA) in other bacteria. Here we report the first structure and biochemical data for a monofunctional PRODH. The 2.0-Å resolution structure of Thermus thermophilus PRODH reveals a distorted (␤␣) 8 barrel catalytic core domain and a hydrophobic ␣-helical domain located above the carboxylterminal ends of the strands of the barrel. Although the catalytic core is similar to that of the PutA PRODH domain, the FAD conformation of T. thermophilus PRODH is remarkably different and likely reflects unique requirements for membrane association and communication with P5CDH. Also, the FAD of T. thermophilus PRODH is highly solvent-exposed compared with PutA due to a 4-Å shift of helix 8. Structurebased sequence analysis of the PutA/PRODH family led us to identify nine conserved motifs involved in cofactor and substrate recognition. Biochemical studies show that the midpoint potential of the FAD is ؊75 mV and the kinetic parameters for proline are K m ‫؍‬ 27 mM and k cat ‫؍‬ 13 s ؊1 .3,4-Dehydro-L-proline was found to be an efficient substrate, and L-tetrahydro-2-furoic acid is a competitive inhibitor (K I ‫؍‬ 1.0 mM). Finally, we demonstrate that T. thermophilus PRODH reacts with O 2 producing superoxide. This is significant because superoxide production underlies the role of human PRODH in p53-mediated apoptosis, implying commonalities between eukaryotic and bacterial monofunctional PRODHs.Oxidation of amino acids is a central part of energy metabolism. The oxidative pathway for proline consists of two enzymatic steps and an intervening nonenzymatic equilibrium (Scheme 1) (1, 2). The first enzymatic step transforms proline to ⌬ 1 -pyrroline-5-carboxylate (P5C), 2 which is non-enzymatically hydrolyzed to glutamic semialdehyde. The semialdehyde is oxidized in the second enzymatic step to glutamate.This 4-electron transformation of proline is common to all organisms, but the enzymes of proline catabolism differ widely among the three kingdoms of life. Amino acid sequence analysis shows that bacteria and eukaryotes share a common set of proline catabolic enzymes called proline dehydrogenase (PRODH) and P5C dehydrogenase (P5CDH). Studies of the bacterial enzymes have shown that PRODH is an FAD-dependent enzyme with a (␤␣) 8 barrel catalytic core (3, 4), and P5CDH is an NAD ϩ -dependent Rossmann fold enzyme featuring a nucleophilic Cys (5). These enzymes are unrelated in sequence and structure to hyperthermophilic archaeal proline catabolic enzymes, which appear in unique hetero-tetrameric and hetero-octameric complexes (6).An intriguing aspect of proline catabolism in eukaryotes and bacteria is that PRODH and P5CDH are separate enzymes in some organisms, whereas the two enzymes are fused in other organisms. The traditional view has been that P...

The PutA flavoprotein from Escherichia coli plays multiple roles in proline catabolism by functioning as a membrane-associated bi-functional enzyme and a transcriptional repressor of proline utilization genes. The human homolog of the PutA proline dehydrogenase (PRODH) domain is critical in p53-mediated apoptosis and schizophrenia. Here we report the crystal structure of a 669-residue truncated form of PutA that shows both PRODH and DNA-binding activities, representing the first structure of a PutA protein and a PRODH enzyme from any organism. The structure is a domain-swapped dimer with each subunit comprising three domains: a helical dimerization arm, a 120-residue domain containing a three-helix bundle similar to that in the helix-turn-helix superfamily of DNA-binding proteins and a beta/alpha-barrel PRODH domain with a bound lactate inhibitor. Analysis of the structure provides insight into the mechanism of proline oxidation to pyrroline-5-carboxylate, and functional studies of a mutant protein suggest that the DNA-binding domain is located within the N-terminal 261 residues of E. coli PutA.

PutA is a novel flavoprotein in Escherichia coli that switches from a transcriptional repressor to a membrane-bound proline catabolic enzyme. Previous crystallographic studies of the PutA proline dehydrogenase (PRODH) domain under oxidizing conditions revealed that FAD N(5) and the ribityl 2'-OH group form hydrogen bonds with Arg431 and Arg556, respectively. Here we identify molecular interactions in the PutA PRODH active site that underlie redox-dependent functional switching of PutA. We report that reduction of the PRODH domain induces major structural changes in the FAD cofactor, including a 22 degrees bend of the isoalloxazine ring along the N(5)-N(10) axis, crankshaft rotation of the upper part of the ribityl chain, and formation of a new hydrogen bond network involving the ribityl 2'-OH group, FAD N(1), and Gly435. The roles of the FAD 2'-OH group and the FAD N(5)-Arg431 hydrogen bond pair in regulating redox-dependent PutA-membrane associations were tested using FAD analogues and site-directed mutagenesis. Kinetic membrane binding measurements and cell-based reporter gene assays of modified PutA proteins show that disrupting the FAD N(5)-Arg431 interaction impairs the reductive activation of PutA-membrane binding. We also show that the FAD 2'-OH group acts as a redox-sensitive toggle switch that controls PutA-membrane binding. These results illustrate a new versatility of the ribityl chain in flavoprotein mechanisms.