Proteasome subunits mRNA expressions correlate with male BMI: implications for a role in obesity

Obesity as well as its associated chronic diseases and adverse health consequences such as type 2 diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and coronary artery disease are afflicting middle-aged adults and an ever greater number of children globally. We planned to investigate new obesity-related factors using proteomics approaches in a randomly selected three high and three low BMI samples of Epstein-Barr-transformed B (EBV-B) lymphoblastoid cell lines prepared from two groups of young Japanese men with different BMI. To search novel obesity-related factors, comparisons of protein expressions between high and low BMI groups were carried out by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE). Gene transcripts of proteasome subunits found out from 2-DE were further determined by quantitative real-time PCR. Results from proteomics approach showed that the expression of proteasome alpha subunit type 5 (PSMA5) was significantly lower in the high BMI male group than in those with low BMI (P < 0.05). To validate these results, we expanded the study to include 20 more men and used real-time PCR to quantify the mRNA expression level in their EBV-B cells. Both PSMA5 and PSMA2 of EBV-B cells showed negative correlation with BMI. Furthermore, the mRNA levels measured in the peripheral blood B lymphocytes for many proteasome subunits in 75 healthy men and women showed significant negative correlation with BMI in healthy men. Our findings suggest that proteasome expression may play a key role in obesity.