[SCAN] Blink and you miss it: human hydrogen sulfide metabolism and oxidative post-translational modifications

Title: Blink and you miss it: human hydrogen sulfide metabolism and oxidative post-translational modifications

Speaker: João Vicente

From: Applied Protein Biochemistry Lab, ITQB NOVA

Abstract: Hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) is endogenously produced and detoxified in mammals by specialized enzymes, to perform signaling functions. Its intrinsic redox reactivity underlies both its function and potential cytotoxicity. Therefore, H₂S metabolism is tightly regulated and dysregulated H₂S levels are linked to numerous pathologies, including cardiovascular and neurodegenerative disease, and cancer. One way of regulating protein/enzyme function is through post-translational modifications (PTM), transient or permanent (covalent) chemical changes on protein amino acid side chains. PTM regulate virtually all biological processes. Oxidative PTM of cysteine residues are abundant and, due to their mostly transient nature, technically challenging to study.

Here, I will present data on the regulation of human cystathionine γ-lyase (CSE) and cystathionine β-synthase (CBS), key enzymes involved in H₂S synthesis, describing CSE regulation by cysteine s-nitrosation and the serendipitous finding that both CBS and CSE can modulate protein s-cysteinylation.

SCANs are weekly seminars that happen every Wednesday at noon by in-house researchers and invited speakers at ITQB NOVA.