Amino acid sequence alignments of cholinesterases revealed that 6 of 14 aromatic amino acid residues lining the active center gorge of acetylcholinesterase are replaced by aliphatic amino acid residues in butyrylcholinesterase. The Y337 (F330) in mammalian acetylcholinesterase, which is replaced by A328 in human butyrylcholinesterase, is implicated in the binding of ligands such as huperzine A, edrophonium, and acridines and one end of bisquaternary compounds such as BW284C51 and decamethonium. Y337 may sterically hinder the binding of phenothiazines such as ethopropazine, which contains a bulky exocyclic substitution. Inhibition studies of (-)-huperzine A with human butyrylcholinesterase mutants, where A328 (KI = 194.6 microM) was modified to either F (KI = 0.6 microM, as in Torpedo acetylcholinesterase) or Y (KI = 0.032 microM, as in mammalian acetylcholinesterase), confirmed previous observations made with acetylcholinesterase mutants that this residue is important for binding huperzine A. Inhibition studies of ethopropazine with butyrylcholinesterase mutants, where A328 (KI = 0.18 microM) was modified to either F (KI = 0.82 microM) or Y (KI = 0.28 microM), suggested that A328 was not solely responsible for the selectivity of ethopropazine. Volume calculations for the active site gorge showed that the poor inhibitory activity of ethopropazine toward acetylcholinesterase was due to the smaller dimension of the active site gorge which was unable to accommodate the bulky inhibitor molecule. The volume of the butyrylcholinesterase active site gorge is approximately 200 A3 larger than that of the acetylcholinesterase gorge, which allows the accommodation of ethopropazine in two different orientations as demonstrated by rigid-body refinement and molecular dynamics calculations.

Tacrine-based AChE and BuChE inhibitors were designed by investigating the topology of the active site gorge of the two enzymes. The homobivalent ligands characterized by a nitrogen-bridged atom at the tether level could be considered among the most potent and selective cholinesterase inhibitors described to date. The nitrogen-containing homobivalent ligands 3e,g and the sulfur-containing 3h validated the hypothesis of extra sites of interaction in the AChE and BuChE active site gorges.

No abstract

Current antidotes for organophosphorus compounds (OP) poisoning consist of a combination of pretreatment with carbamates (pyridostigmine bromide), to protect acetylcholinesterase (AChE) from irreversible inhibition by OP compounds, and post-exposure therapy with anti-cholinergic drugs (atropine sulfate) to counteract the effects of excess acetylcholine and oximes (e.g., 2-PAM chloride) to reactivate OP-inhibited AChE. These antidotes are effective in preventing lethality from OP poisoning, but they do not prevent post-exposure incapacitation, convulsions, seizures, performance decrements, or in many cases permanent brain damage. These symptoms are commonly observed in experimental animals and are likely to occur in humans. The problems intrinsic to these antidotes stimulated attempts to develop a single protective drug, itself devoid of pharmacological effects, which would provide protection against the lethality of OP compounds and prevent post-exposure incapacitation. One approach is the use of enzymes such as cholinesterases (ChEs), beta-esterases in general, as single pretreatment drugs to sequester highly toxic OP anti-ChEs before they reach their physiological targets. This approach turns the irreversible nature of the OP: ChE interaction from disadvantage to an advantage; instead of focusing on OP as an anti-ChE, one can use ChE as an anti-OP. Using this approach, it was shown that administration of fetal bovine serum AChE (FBSAChE) or equine serum butyrylcholinesterase (EqBChE) or human serum BChE (HuBChE) protected the animals from multiple LD50s of a variety of highly toxic OPs without any toxic effects or performance decrements. The bioscavengers that have been explored to date for the detoxification of OPs fall into three categories: (A) those that can catalytically hydrolyze OPs and thus render them non-toxic, such as OP hydrolase and OP anhydrase; (B) those that stoichiometrically bind to OPs, that is, 1 mol of enzyme neutralizes one or 2 mol of OP inactivating both, such as ChEs and related enzymes; and (C) and those generally termed as "pseudo catalytic", e.g., a combination of ChE and an oxime pre-treatment such that the catalytic activity of OP-inhibited ChE can rapidly and continuously be restored in the presence of an oxime. Since the biochemical mechanism underlying prophylaxis by exogenous esterases such as ChEs is established and tested in several animal species, including non-human primates, this concept should allow a reliable extrapolation of results from animal experiments to human application. Having being extensively investigated by several groups, plasma derived HuBChE is judged to be the most suitable bioscavenger for its advancement for human use. The program is being developed at the present time for conducting a safety clinical trial in human volunteers. Several other candidate bioscavengers will follow; e.g., recombinant HuBChE expressed in the milk of transgenic goats, pseudo catalytic scavenger(s), e.g., a combination of ChE and oxime, and possibly PON 1 as a catalytic scaveng...

To understand the role of glycosylation in the circulation of cholinesterases, we compared the mean residence time of five tissue-derived and two recombinant cholinesterases (injected intravenously in mice) with their oligosaccharide profiles. Monosaccharide composition analysis revealed differences in the total carbohydrate, galactose, and sialic acid contents. The molar ratio of sialic acid to galactose residues on tetrameric human serum butyrylcholinesterase, recombinant human butyrylcholinesterase, and recombinant mouse acetylcholinesterase was found to be approximately 1.0. For Torpedo californica acetylcholinesterase, monomeric and tetrameric fetal bovine serum acetylcholinesterase, and equine serum butyrylcholinesterase, this ratio was approximately 0.5. However, the circulatory stability of cholinesterases could not be correlated with the sialic acid-to-galactose ratio. Fractionation of the total pool of oligosaccharides obtained after neuraminidase digestion revealed one major oligosaccharide for human serum butyrylcholinesterase and three or four major oligosaccharides in other cholinesterases. The glycans of tetrameric forms of plasma cholinesterases (human serum butyrylcholinesterase, fetal bovine serum acetylcholinesterase, and equine serum butyrylcholinesterase) clearly demonstrated a reduced heterogeneity and higher maturity compared with glycans of monomeric fetal bovine serum acetylcholinesterase, dimeric tissue-derived T. californica acetylcholinesterase, and recombinant cholinesterases. T. californica acetylcholinesterase, recombinant cholinesterases, and monomeric fetal bovine serum acetylcholinesterase showed a distinctive shorter mean residence time (44-304 min) compared with tetrameric forms of plasma cholinesterases (1902-3206 min). Differences in the pharmacokinetic parameters of cholinesterases seem to be due to the combined effect of the molecular weight and charge- and size-based heterogeneity in glycans.

No abstract

Current antidotal regimens for organophosphorus compound (OP) poisoning consist of a combination of pretreatment with a spontaneously reactivating AChE inhibitor such as pyridostigmine bromide, and postexposure therapy with anticholinergic drugs such as atropine sulfate and oximes such as 2-PAM chloride (Gray, 1984). Although these antidotal regimens are effective in preventing lethality of animals from OP poisoning, they do not prevent postexposure incapacitation, convulsions, performance deficits, or, in many cases, permanent brain damage (Dunn and Sidell, 1989). These problems stimulated the development of enzyme bioscavengers as a pretreatment to sequester highly toxic OPs before they reach their physiological targets. Several studies over the last two decades have demonstrated that exogenously administered human serum butyrylcholinesterase (Hu BChE) can be used successfully as a safe, efficacious, and single prophylactic treatment to counteract the toxicity of OPs. It also has potential use for first responders (civilians) reacting to terrorist nerve gas release, pesticide overexposure, or succinylcholine-induced apnea. A dose of 200 mg of Hu BChE in humans is envisioned as a prophylactic treatment that can protect from exposure of 2-5 x LD50 of nerve agents (Ashani, 2000).

Cholinesterases are serine hydrolases that can potentially be used as pretreatment drugs for organophosphate toxicity, as drugs to alleviate succinylcholine-induced apnea, and as detoxification agents for environmental toxins such as heroin and cocaine. The successful application of serum-derived cholinesterases as bioscavengers stems from their relatively long residence time in the circulation. To better understand the relationship between carbohydrate structure and the stability of cholinesterases in circulation, we determined the monosaccharide composition, the distribution of various oligosaccharides, and the structure of the major asparagine-linked oligosaccharides units present in fetal bovine serum acetylcholinesterase and equine serum butyrylcholinesterase. Our findings indicate that 70-80% of the oligosaccharides in both enzymes are negatively charged. This finding together with the molar ratio of galactose to sialic acid clearly suggests that the beta-galactose residues are only partially capped with sialic acid, yet they displayed a long duration in circulation. The structures of the two major oligosaccharides from fetal bovine serum acetylcholinesterase and one major oligosaccharide from equine serum butyrylcholinesterase were determined. The three carbohydrate structures were of the biantennary complex type, but only the ones from fetal bovine serum acetylcholinesterase were fucosylated on the innermost N-acetylglucosamine residue of the core. Pharmacokinetic studies with native, desialylated, and deglycosylated forms of both enzymes indicate that the microheterogeneity in carbohydrate structure may be responsible, in part, for the multiphasic clearance of cholinesterases from the circulation of mice.