Research Paper|Volume 3, Issue 8|pp 768—781

PaCATB, a secreted catalase protecting Podospora anserina against exogenous oxidative stress

Sandra Zintel¹, Dominik Bernhardt¹, Adelina Rogowska-Wrzesinska², Heinz D. Osiewacz¹

¹Institute of Molecular Biosciences and ‘Cluster of Excellence Macromolecular Complexes’, Department of Biosciences, J.W. Goethe-University, Max-von-Laue-Str. 9, D-60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
²Protein Research Group, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Southern Denmark, Campus 55, DK-5230 Odense M, Denmark

Received: August 3, 2011Accepted: August 10, 2011Published: August 14, 2011

Copyright: © 2011 Zintel et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

A differential mass spectrometry analysis of secreted proteins from juvenile and senescent Podospora anserina cultures revealed age-related differences in protein profiles. Among other proteins with decreased abundance in the secretome of senescent cultures a catalase, termed PaCATB, was identified. Genetic modulation of the abundance of PaCATB identified differential effects on the phenotype of the corresponding strains. Deletion of PaCatB resulted in decreased resistance, over-expression in increased resistance against hydrogen peroxide. While the lifespan of the genetically modified strains was found to be unaffected under standard growth conditions, increased exogenous hydrogen peroxide stress in the growth medium markedly reduced the lifespan of the PaCatB deletion strain but extended the lifespan of PaCatB over-expressors. Overall our data identify a component of the secretome of P. anserina as a new effective factor to cope with environmental stress, stress that under natural conditions is constantly applied on organisms and influences aging processes.