The mitochondrial iron chaperone, frataxin, plays a critical role in cellular iron homeostasis and the synthesis and regeneration of Fe-S centers. Genetic insufficiency for frataxin is associated with Friedreich's Ataxia in humans and confers loss of function of Fe-containing proteins including components of the respiratory chain and mitochondrial and cytosolic aconitases. Here, we report the use of RNA-interference (RNAi) to suppress frataxin in the multicellular eukaryote, Drosophila. Phenotypically, suppression of the Drosophila frataxin homologue (dfh) confers distinct phenotypes in larvae and adults, leading to giant long-lived larvae and to conditional short-lived adults. Deficiency of the DFH protein results in diminished activities of numerous heme- and iron-sulfur-containing enzymes, loss of intracellular iron homeostasis and increased susceptibility to iron toxicity. In parallel with the differential larval and adult phenotypes, our results indicate that dfh silencing differentially dysregulates ferritin expression in adults but not in larvae. Moreover, silencing of dfh in the peripheral nervous system, a specific focus of Friedreich's pathology, permits normal larval development but imposes a marked reduction in adult lifespan. In contrast, dfh silencing in motorneurons has no deleterious effect in either larvae or adults. Finally, overexpression of Sod1, Sod2 or Cat does not suppress the failure of DFH-deficient animals to successfully complete eclosion, suggesting a minimal role of oxidative stress in this phenotype. The robust developmental, biochemical and tissue-specific phenotypes conferred by DFH deficiency in Drosophila provide a platform for identifying genetic, nutritional and environmental factors, which ameliorate the symptoms arising from frataxin deficiency.

Oxidative stress has been widely implicated as an important factor in the aging process. Because mitochondrial respiration is the principal source of reactive oxygen within cells, the mitochondrially localized superoxide dismutase (SOD) 2 is thought to play an important front-line defensive role against aging-related oxidative stress. Although genetic studies with mutants deficient in SOD1, the predominantly cytosolic isoform of SOD, have been instrumental in elucidating the role of reactive oxygen metabolism in aging in Drosophila, the lack of available mutations in the Sod2 gene has hampered an equivalent analysis of the participation of this important antioxidant enzyme in the Drosophila aging model. Here we report that ablation of mitochondrial SOD2 through expression of a GAL4-regulated, inverted-repeat Sod2 RNA-interference transgene in an otherwise normal animal causes increased endogenous oxidative stress, resulting in loss of essential enzymatic components of the mitochondrial respiratory chain and the tricarboxylic acid cycle, enhances sensitivity to applied oxidative stress, and causes early-onset mortality in young adults. In sharp contrast, ablation of SOD2 has no overt effect on the development of larvae and pupae, which may reflect a fundamental transition in oxygen utilization and͞or reactive oxygen metabolism that occurs during metamorphosis from larval to adult life.

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Copper,zinc superoxide dismutase (SOD1) in mammals is activated principally via a copper chaperone (CCS) and to a lesser degree by a CCS-independent pathway of unknown nature. In this study, we have characterized the requirement for CCS in activating SOD1 from Drosophila. A CCS-null mutant (Ccs n29E ) of Drosophila was created and found to phenotypically resemble Drosophila SOD1-null mutants in terms of reduced adult life span, hypersensitivity to oxidative stress, and loss of cytosolic aconitase activity. However, the phenotypes of CCS-null flies were less severe, consistent with some CCS-independent activation of Drosophila SOD1 (dSOD1). Yet SOD1 activity was not detectable in Ccs n29E flies, due largely to a striking loss of SOD1 protein. In contrast, human SOD1 expressed in CCS-null flies is robustly active and rescues the deficits in adult life span and sensitivity to oxidative stress. The dependence of dSOD1 on CCS was also observed in a yeast expression system where the dSOD1 polypeptide exhibited unusual instability in CCS-null (ccs1⌬) yeast. The residual dSOD1 polypeptide in ccs1⌬ yeast was nevertheless active, consistent with CCS-independent activation. Stability of dSOD1 in ccs1⌬ cells was readily restored by expression of either yeast or Drosophila CCS, and this required copper insertion into the enzyme. The yeast expression system also revealed some species specificity for CCS. Yeast SOD1 exhibits preference for yeast CCS over Drosophila CCS, whereas dSOD1 is fully activated with either CCS molecule. Such variation in mechanisms of copper activation of SOD1 could reflect evolutionary responses to unique oxygen and/or copper environments faced by divergent species.

Iron and oxygen are essential but potentially toxic constituents of most organisms, and their transport is meticulously regulated both at the cellular and systemic levels. Compartmentalization may be a homeostatic mechanism for isolating these biological reactants in cells. To investigate this hypothesis, we have undertaken a genetic analysis of the interaction between iron and oxygen metabolism in Drosophila. We show that Drosophila iron regulatory protein-1 (IRP1) registers cytosolic iron and oxidative stress through its labile iron sulfur cluster by switching between cytosolic aconitase and RNA-binding functions. IRP1 is strongly activated by silencing and genetic mutation of the cytosolic superoxide dismutase (Sod1), but is unaffected by silencing of mitochondrial Sod2. Conversely, mitochondrial aconitase activity is relatively insensitive to loss of Sod1 function, but drops dramatically if Sod2 activity is impaired. This strongly suggests that the mitochondrial boundary limits the range of superoxide reactivity in vivo. We also find that exposure of adults to paraquat converts cytosolic aconitase to IRP1 but has no affect on mitochondrial aconitase, indicating that paraquat generates superoxide in the cytosol but not in mitochondria. Accordingly, we find that transgene-mediated overexpression of Sod2 neither enhances paraquat resistance in Sod1 ؉ flies nor compensates for lack of SOD1 activity in Sod1-null mutants. We conclude that in vivo, superoxide is confined to the subcellular compartment in which it is formed, and that the mitochondrial and cytosolic SODs provide independent protection to compartment-specific protein iron-sulfur clusters against attack by superoxide generated under oxidative stress within those compartments.Iron and oxygen are indispensable but potentially harmful elements of aerobic life. Individually, their reactivity has been harnessed through association with a variety of proteins and the regulation of iron and oxygen metabolism constitutes one of the major triumphs of molecular evolution (1). Iron sulfur cluster proteins function in electron transport during oxidative phosphorylation and metabolism, but can also serve as iron and oxygen sensors (2). For instance, iron regulatory protein-1 (IRP1) 1 exerts its dual activities through the reciprocal use or dissasembly of its cubane iron sulfur [4Fe-4S] cluster; the holoprotein functions as a cytosolic aconitase, whereas the apoprotein is an RNA-binding translational regulator (1, 3). The stability and functionality of IRP1 as a translation regulator is affected not only by iron levels, but also by oxidative stress, which induces IRP1 to bind iron responsive elements (IREs) located on the 5Ј and 3Ј untranslated regions of target genes (4, 5). Although it is established that [4Fe-4S] cluster proteins can be specifically inactivated by superoxide (O 2 . ) (6 -8), the questions of whether the IRP1 [4Fe-4S] cluster reacts with O 2

Mutations in Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase (SOD), a hallmark of familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (FALS) in humans, are shown here to confer striking neuropathology in Drosophila. Heterozygotes with one wild-type and one deleted SOD allele retain the expected 50Y% of normal activity for this dimeric enzyme. However, heterozygotes with one wild-type and one missense SOD allele show lesser SOD activities, ranging from 37% for a heterozygote carrying a missense mutation predicted from structural models to destabilize the dimer interface, to an average of 13% for several heterozygotes carrying missense mutations predicted to destabilize the subunit fold. Genetic and biochemical evidence suggests a model of dimer dysequilibrium whereby SOD activity in missense heterozygotes is reduced through entrapment of wild-type subunits into unstable or enzymatically inactive heterodimers. This dramatic impairment of the activity ofwild-type subunits in vivo has implications for our understanding of FALS and for possible therapeutic strategies.Mutations in Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase (SOD, EC 1.15.1.1) have been identified in the etiology of familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (FALS), a syndrome commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease (1, 2). Some FALS-affected individuals are carriers of missense mutations that appear to alter the stability (3) and/or the function of this critical oxygen radicalmetabolizing enzyme (2). The dominant phenotype associated with FALS mutations in SOD could result from loss of enzyme function, consistent with the reduced SOD activity in FALS patients (2, 4-7), or from the gain of a deleterious function, such as enhanced reactivity with peroxynitrite leading to elevated protein-tyrosine nitration (8, 9), consistent with the motor neuron damage found in transgenic mice overexpressing FALS-type mutant SOD (10, 11).A direct test of the relationship between SOD subunit function and neurodegenerative disease would be to induce and select mutations in SOD in an organism amenable to genetic analysis and then characterize the biochemical and neurological consequences conferred by these mutations. We have previously shown that null mutation for SOD in Drosophila melanogaster confers a syndrome including reduced adult lifespan, infertility, toxic hypersensitivity to a variety of oxygen stress conditions, and lethality in combination with mutations conferring defects in other oxygen radical scavengers (12-16). Overt symptoms of the SOD-null syndrome have been described only in homozygotes and are ameliorated by P element-vectored SOD transgenes (ref. 17; T. Parkes, A.J.H., and J.P.P., unpublished data).Here we show that mutations in SOD in Drosophila, as in humans, cause neuropathology. We also show that missense mutations expected to destabilize SOD subunits and dimer assembly significantly impair the activity of normal subunits in heterozygotes for a wild-type allele, resulting in significantly lower enzyme activity than expected in heterozygotes. These findings are important to our understanding of...

In mammalian cells, iron homeostasis is largely regulated by post-transcriptional control of gene expression through the binding of iron-regulatory proteins (IRP1 and IRP2) to iron-responsive elements (IREs) contained in the untranslated regions of target mRNAs. IRP2 is the dominant iron sensor in mammalian cells under normoxia, but IRP1 is the more ancient protein in evolutionary terms and has an additional function as a cytosolic aconitase. The Caenorhabditis elegans genome does not contain an IRP2 homolog or identifiable IREs; its IRP1 homolog has aconitase activity but does not bind to mammalian IREs. The Drosophila genome offers an evolutionary intermediate containing two IRP1-like proteins (IRP-1A and IRP-1B) and target genes with IREs. Here, we used purified recombinant IRP-1A and IRP-1B from Drosophila melanogaster and showed that only IRP-1A can bind to IREs, although both proteins possess aconitase activity. These results were also corroborated in whole-fly homogenates from transgenic flies that overexpress IRP-1A and IRP-1B in their fat bodies. Ubiquitous and muscle-specific overexpression of IRP-1A, but not of IRP-1B, resulted in pre-adult lethality, underscoring the importance of the biochemical difference between the two proteins. Domain-swap experiments showed that multiple amino acid substitutions scattered throughout the IRP1 domains are synergistically required for conferring IRE binding activity. Our data suggest that as a first step during the evolution of the IRP/IRE system, the ancient cytosolic aconitase was duplicated in insects with one variant acquiring IRE-specific binding.Iron is required for aerobic metabolism and is actively sensed, sequestered, and regulated by organisms, including hosts and pathogens, that often compete for metal acquisition (1). In multicellular organisms, signals exist for systemic control of iron metabolism (2). One of the central regulators of cellular iron metabolism is the IRP/IRE system (3). In brief, absence of iron is sensed by IRP1 and IRP2, which then bind to ironresponsive elements (IREs) 4 in the 5Ј-untranslated regions of mRNAs encoding several storage or consumer iron proteins, inhibiting their translation. IRP1 and IRP2 also bind to IREs in the 3Ј-untranslated regions of mRNAs encoding proteins that function in cellular iron import, stabilizing the transcripts and enhancing iron sequestration. There is much interest in defining how IRP1 and IRP2 sense iron levels. IRP1 interconverts between an iron-sulfur protein with aconitase activity and the apoprotein that binds to the IRE (4). IRP2 has an additional 73-amino acid domain inserted in the protein and has no aconitase activity (5, 6). Extensive analysis of knock-out mice has led to the conclusion that IRP2 dominates mammalian cellular iron metabolism (7). IRP1 also contributes to the regulation of cellular iron metabolism, albeit to a lesser extent, because its iron-sulfur cluster is efficiently repaired and the protein functions mostly as an aconitase (8 -10). It is also well established that b...

Cu-Zn superoxide dismutase (cSOD) is an enzyme of critical importance for the inactivation of superoxide radicals generated by cellular metabolic processes. A phenotypic syndrome has been characterized for homozygotes for a null mutation of the Drosophila cSOD gene, many features of which may be relevant to current studies of cSOD mutations in mammals. However, it was possible that some of the features of this syndrome were at least partially attributable to genetic background differences between control and mutant strains. The results reported in this paper document that the previously described features of the cSOD-null phenotype, namely (i) adult sensitivity to paraquat, (ii) male sterility, (iii) female semisterility, (iv) adult life-span reduction, (v) adult hyperoxia sensitivity, (vi) larval radiation sensitivity, and (vii) developmental sensitivity to glutathione depletion, are all rescued by a cSOD+ transgene in a controlled cSOD-null genetic background. This clearly confirms that the phenotype is largely attributable to the cSOD mutation per se. We describe two new features of the cSOD-null phenotype, namely (viii) adult sensitivity to glutathione depletion, and (ix) adult sensitivity to ionizing radiation, which are ameliorated by the cSOD+ transgene. The distinct sensitivity of cSOD-deficient individuals, and the uniform resistance of the cSOD+ control strains, clearly establish the requirement for cSOD in protection against intrinsic and applied oxygen stress and set the stage for tissue-specific expression studies with the goal of elucidating the critical target(s) of damage in cSOD-deficient animals.