Urea-induced Inactivation and Unfolding of Recombinant Phospholipid Hydroperoxide Glutathione Peroxidase from Oryza sativa

Phospholipid hydroperoxide glutathione peroxidase is an antioxidant enzyme that has the highest capability of reducing membrane-bound hydroperoxy lipids as compared to free organic and inorganic hydroperoxides amongst the glutathione peroxidases. In this study, urea-induced effects on the inactivation and unfolding of a recombinant phospholipid hydroperoxide glutathione peroxidase (PHGPx) from Oryza sativa were investigated by means of circular dichroism and fluorescence spectroscopy. With the increase of urea concentration, the residual activity of OsPHGPx decreases correspondingly. When the urea concentration is above 5.0 mol/L, there was no residual activity. In addition, the observed changes in intrinsic tryptophan fluorescence, the binding of the hydrophobic fluorescence probe ANS, and the far UV CD describe a common dependence on the concentration of urea suggesting that the conformational features of the native OsPHGPx are lost in a highly cooperative single transition. The unfolding process comprises of three zones: the native base-line zone between 0 and 2.5 mol/L urea, the transition zone between 2.5 and 5.5 mol/L urea, and the denatured base-line zone above 5.5 mol/L urea. The transition zone has a midpoint at about 4.0 mol/L urea.