Interleukin-1β (IL-1β) is a prototypical multifunctional cytokine that plays an important role in intestinal inflammation of Crohn's disease and other inflammatory conditions of the gut. Previous studies have shown that IL-1β causes an increase in intestinal epithelial tight junction (TJ) permeability both in in vivo animal and in vitro cell culture model systems. The IL-1β-induced increase in intestinal epithelial TJ permeability has been postulated to be an important pathogenic mechanism contributing to intestinal inflammation. However, the signalling pathways and the molecular processes that mediate the IL-1β modulation of intestinal epithelial TJ barrier remain unclear. Here, we show that the IL-1β-induced increase in Caco-2 monolayer TJ permeability was mediated by activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinases 1/2 (ERK1/2) signalling pathway and that inhibition of ERK1/2 activity inhibits the IL-1β-induced increase in Caco-2 TJ permeability. The activation of ERK1/2 pathway caused a downstream activation of nuclear transcription factor Elk-1. The activated Elk-1 translocated to the nucleus and binds to the cis-binding motif on myosin light chain kinase (MLCK) promoter region, triggering MLCK gene activation, MLCK mRNA transcription and MLCK protein synthesis and MLCK catalysed opening of the intestinal epithelial TJ barrier. These studies provide novel insight into the cellular and molecular processes that mediate the IL-1β-induced increase in intestinal epithelial TJ permeability.

Organophosphorus hydrolase (OPH) is a metalloenzyme that can hydrolyze organophosphorus agents resulting in products that are generally of reduced toxicity. The best OPH substrate found to date is diethyl p-nitrophenyl phosphate (paraoxon). Most structural and kinetic studies assume that the binding orientation of paraoxon is identical to that of diethyl 4-methylbenzylphosphonate, which is the only substrate analog co-crystallized with OPH. In the current work, we used a combined docking and molecular dynamics (MD) approach to predict the likely binding mode of paraoxon. Then, we used the predicted binding mode to run MD simulations on the wild type (WT) OPH complexed with paraoxon, and OPH mutants complexed with paraoxon. Additionally, we identified three hot-spot residues (D253, H254, and I255) involved in the stability of the OPH active site. We then experimentally assayed single and double mutants involving these residues for paraoxon binding affinity. The binding free energy calculations and the experimental kinetics of the reactions between each OPH mutant and paraoxon show that mutated forms D253E, D253E-H254R, and D253E-I255G exhibit enhanced substrate binding affinity over WT OPH. Interestingly, our experimental results show that the substrate binding affinity of the double mutant D253E-H254R increased by 19-fold compared to WT OPH.