The effect of red pigment on the amyloidization of yeast proteins

The intensity of amyloid-bound thioflavine T fluorescence was studied in crude lysates of yeast strains carrying mutations in the ADE1 or ADE2 genes and accumulating the red pigment (a result of polymerization of aminoimidazoleribotide), and in white isogenic strains--either adenine prototrophs or carrying mutations at the first stages of purine biosynthesis. We found that the red pigment leads to a drop of amyloid content. This result, along with the data on separation of protein polymers of white and red strains in PAGE, suggests that the red pigment inhibits amyloid fibril formation. The differences in transmission of the thioflavine T fluorescence pattern by cytoduction and in blot-hybridization of pellet proteins of red and white [PSI(+) ] strains with Sup35p antibodies confirmed this conclusion. Purified red pigment treatment also led to a decrease of fluorescence intensity of thioflavine T bound to insulin fibrils and to yeast pellet protein aggregates from [PSI(+) ] strains. This suggests red pigment interaction with amyloid fibrils. Comparison of pellet proteins from red and white isogenic strains separated by 2D-electrophoresis followed by MALDI analysis has allowed us to identify 48 pigment-dependent proteins. These proteins mostly belong to functional classes of chaperones and proteins involved in glucose metabolism, closely corresponding to prion-dependent proteins that we characterized previously. Also present were some proteins involved in stress response and proteolysis. We suppose that the red pigment acts by blocking certain sites on amyloid fibrils that, in some cases, can lead in vivo to interfere with their contacts with chaperones and the generation of prion seeds.