Nonenzymatic glycation of histones in vitro and in vivo

Purified histones in solution, purified nuclei, or whole endothelial cells in cell culture were used to study the reactivity of histones with various sugars. The sugar incubation of purified histones produced nonenzymatic glycation and formation of histone cross‐links showing disappearance of individual histone molecules and appearance of dimers and polymers in SDS–PAGE. In solution, core histones react considerably faster with sugars as compared to H1 histones. In sugar‐incubated nuclei where histones are nucleosomally organized, H1 histones, which are located at the periphery of the nucleosome, and H2A‐H2B dimers, which are associated with the central H3 2 ‐H4 2 tetramer, are more reactive as compared to H3 and H4 histones, which are most protected from the glycation reaction. Our in vivo experiments using endothelial cells show that high concentrations of ribose are able to generate protein cross‐links paralleled by apoptotic cell death. High concentrations of glucose or fructose do not increase histone glycation or cell death, even after 60 days of incubation of endothelial cells. In long‐time glucose‐ or fructose‐treated cells, under nondenaturing and nonreducing SDS–PAGE conditions part of the H3 histones shifted away from their normal location. Because it is known that the mitochondrial production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) increases after hyperglycaemia, we hypothesize that ROS could be responsible for the formation of a disulphide bridge between the side chain of the cysteine residues of H3 molecules. J. Cell. Biochem. 85: 24–34, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.