Background
Brown-Vialetto-Van Laere Syndrome (BVVLS), a rare neurological disorder characterized by bulbar palsies and sensorineural deafness, is mainly associated with defective riboflavin transporters encoded by the SLC52A2 and SLC52A3 genes.
Methods
Here we present a 16-year-old BVVLS patient belonging to a five generation consanguineous family from Indian ethnicity with two homozygous missense mutations viz., c.421C>A [p.P141T] in SLC52A2 and c.62A>G [p.N21S] in SLC52A3.
Results
Functional characterization based on 3H-riboflavin uptake assay and live-cell confocal imaging revealed that the effect of mutation c.421C>A [p.P141T] identified in SLC52A2 had a slight reduction in riboflavin uptake; on the other hand, the c.62A>G [p.N21S] identified in SLC52A3 showed a drastic reduction in riboflavin uptake, which appeared to be due to impaired trafficking and membrane targeting of the hRFVT-3 protein.
Conclusions
This is the first report presenting mutations in both riboflavin transporters hRFVT-2 and hRFVT-3 in the same BVVLS patient. Also, c.62A>G [p.N21S] in SLC52A3 appears to contribute more to the disease phenotype in this patient than c.421C>A [p.P141T] in SLC52A2.
Vitamin C is well documented to have antiviral functions; however, there is limited information about its effect on airway epithelial cells—the first cells to encounter infections. Here, we examined the effect of vitamin C on human bronchial epithelium transformed with Ad12-SV40 2B (BEAS-2B) cells, and observed that sodium-dependent vitamin C transporter 2 (SVCT2) was the primary vitamin C transporter. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that treating BEAS-2B cells with vitamin C led to a significant upregulation of several metabolic pathways and interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs) along with a downregulation of pathways involved in lung injury and inflammation. Remarkably, vitamin C also enhanced the expression of the viral-sensing receptors retinoic acid-inducible gene 1 (RIG-1) and melanoma differentiation-associated protein 5 (MDA-5), which was confirmed at the protein and functional levels. In addition, the lungs of l-gulono-γ-lactone oxidase knockout (GULO-KO) mice also displayed a marked decrease in these genes compared to wild-type controls. Collectively, our findings indicate that vitamin C acts at multiple levels to exert its antiviral and protective functions in the lungs.
The human riboflavin (RF) transporter-3 (hRFVT-3; product of the gene) plays an essential role in the intestinal RF absorption process and is expressed exclusively at the apical membrane domain of polarized enterocytes. Previous studies have characterized different physiological/biological aspects of this transporter, but nothing is known about the glycosylation status of the hRFVT-3 protein and role of this modification in its physiology/biology. Additionally, little is known about the residues in the hRFVT-3 protein that interact with the ligand, RF. We addressed these issues using appropriate biochemical/molecular approaches, a protein-docking model, and established intestinal/renal epithelial cells. Our results showed that the hRFVT-3 protein is glycosylated and that glycosylation is important for its function. Mutating the predicted-glycosylation sites at Asn and Asn led to a significant decrease in RF uptake; it also led to a marked intracellular (in the endoplasmic reticulum, ER) retention of the mutated proteins as shown by live-cell confocal imaging studies. The protein-docking model used in this study has identified a number of putative substrate-interacting sites: Ser, Ile, Trp, Phe, Thr, and Asn Mutating these potential interacting sites was indeed found to lead to a significant inhibition in RF uptake and to intracellular (ER) retention of the mutated proteins (except for the Phe mutant). These results demonstrate that the hRFVT-3 protein is glycosylated and this glycosylation is important for its function and cell surface expression. This study also identified a number of residues in the hRFVT-3 polypeptide that are important for its function/cell surface expression.
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