Vitamin C alters the amount of specific endoplasmic reticulum associated proteins involved in lipid metabolism in the liver of mice synthesizing a nonfunctional Werner syndrome (Wrn) mutant protein

Werner syndrome (WS) is a premature aging disorder caused by mutations in a protein containing both a DNA exonuclease and DNA helicase domain. Mice lacking the helicase domain of the Wrn protein orthologue exhibit transcriptomic and metabolic alterations, some of which are reversed by vitamin C. Recent studies on these animals indicated that the mutant protein is associated with enriched endoplasmic reticulum (ER) fractions of tissues resulting in an ER stress response. In this study, we identified proteins that exhibit actual level differences in the ER enriched fraction between the liver of wild type and Wrn mutant mice using quantitative proteomic profiling with label-free Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Multiple Reaction Monitoring (MRM) and immunoblotting were performed to validate findings in a secondary independent cohort of wild type and Wrn mutant mice. DAVID 6.7 (NIH) was used for functional annotation analysis and indicated that the identified proteins exhibiting level changes between untreated wild type, Wrn mutant, and vitamin C treated Wrn mutant mice (ANOVA P –value < 0.05) were involved in fatty acid and steroid metabolism pathways (Bonferroni P -value = 0.0137). Finally, when we compared the transcriptomic and the proteomic data of our mouse cohorts only ~7% of the altered mRNA profiles encoding for ER gene products were consistent with their corresponding protein profiles measured by the label-free quantification methods. These results suggest that a great number of ER gene products are regulated at the post-transcriptional level in the liver of Wrn mutant mice exhibiting an ER stress response.