S-nitrosothiols react preferentially with zinc thiolate clusters of metallothionein III through transnitrosation.

Metallothionein (MT) is a two-domain protein with zinc thiolate clusters that bind and release zinc depending on the redox states of the sulfur ligands. Since S-nitrosylation of cysteine is considered a prototypic cellular redox signaling mechanism, we here investigate the reactions of S-nitrosothiols with different isoforms of MT. MT-III is significantly more reactive than MT-I/II toward S-nitrosothiols, whereas the reactivity of all three isoforms toward reactive oxygen species is comparable. A cellular system, in which all three MTs are similarly effective in protecting rat embryonic cortical neurons in primary culture against hydrogen peroxide but where MT-III has a much more pronounced effect of protecting against S-nitrosothiols, confirms this finding. MT-III is the only isoform with consensus acid-base sequence motifs for S-nitrosylation in both domains. Studies with synthetic and zinc-reconstituted domain peptides demonstrate that S-nitrosothiols indeed release zinc from both the alpha- and the beta-domain of MT-III. S-Nitrosylation occurs via transnitrosation, a mechanism that differs fundamentally from that of previous studies of reactions of MT with NO*. Our data demonstrate that zinc thiolate bonds are targets of S-nitrosothiol signaling and further indicate that MT-III is biologically specific in converting NO signals to zinc signals. This could bear importantly on the physiological action of MT-III, whose biological activity as a neuronal growth inhibitory factor is unique, and for brain diseases that have been related to oxidative or nitrosative stress.