BIOACTIVITY OF METALLOTHIONEIN-3 CORRELATES WITH ITS NOVEL BETA-DOMAIN SEQUENCE RATHER THAN METAL-BINDING PROPERTIES

Human and mouse metallothionein-3 (MT-3) molecules exhibit the same me tal binding stoichiometry with Zn(II), Cd(II), or Cu(I) as MT-1 or MT- 2 molecules, suggesting that MT-3 consists of two domains enfolding se parate polymetallic clusters. The kinetic reactivities of Zn(II) compl exes of MT-3 with the chelator ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) or the thiol reagent dithiobis(2-nitrobenzoic acid) (DTNB) resembles t he reactivity of ZnMT-1. Furthermore, the candidate alpha and beta dom ain peptides of human MT-3 are very similar to MT-1 domain peptides in the reactivity of Zn(II) complexes. Zn(II) complexes of human and mou se MT-3 inhibit the survival of rat cortical neurons cultured in the p resence of an Alzheimer's disease brain extract. Inhibitory activity i s unique to the MT-3 isoform and is a property of the N-terminal beta domain. The inhibitory activity of the 32-residue MT-3 beta domain is abolished by a double mutation within the beta domain resulting in the conversion of the C-P-C-P sequence to either C-S-C-A or C-T-C-T. Thus , the bioactivity arises from a novel structure of the N-terminal beta domain of MT-3 and not any unusual metal-binding properties.