Discovery of a New Function of Human Butyrylcholinesterase and the Catalytic Activity of its Natural Variants toward Homocysteine Thiolactone Hydrolysis

Abnormal activity level of human butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) was detected in patients with cardiovascular disease and neurodegenerative disorders, however, the specific role of BChE in the pathology of these diseases are not known yet. Homocysteine thiolactone (HTL) is a toxic thioester metabolite of homocysteine in conditions of hyperhomocysteinemia (HHcy). Experimental evidences suggest that HTL and resultant N-Hcy proteins that disrupt normal protein function, are associated with the pathology of HHcy-related complications such as cardiovascular diseases. Given the abundance of BChE in the blood and its esterase capacity, it is worthy to investigate the hydrolytic ability of BChE and its genetic polymorphism effects towards the endogenous toxic HTL in order to delineate its function in the complex disease network. In this study, human BChE and acetylcholinesterase (AChE) were examined for their ability in HTL hydrolysis, and BChE demonstrates higher catalytic efficiency than reported serum paraoxonase 1 (PON1). Furthermore, the catalytic mechanism uncovered by Quantum mechanics/Molecular mechanics (QM/MM) molecular dynamics (MD) method helps to understand and substantiate the function of BChE in HTL metabolism. Six frequent BChE nonsynonymous coding single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) variants were recombinantly produced and their catalytic activity was assessed. Differential catalytic efficiency toward HTL was observed among these variants, suggesting their distinct metabolic capability in vivo . These findings highlight the potential protection role of BChE against HTL-induced toxicity, and pave a way for future investigation into BChE’s contribution in HTL metabolism and the possible correlation between specific BChE SNPs and susceptibility for developing HTL-associated diseases.