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Molecular and Cellular Biology, June 2003, p. 4107-4120, Vol. 23, No. 12
0270-7306/03/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/MCB.23.12.4107-4120.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Faculty of Science, Chiba University, Inage-ku, Chiba 263-8522, Japan
Received 3 October 2002/ Returned for modification 13 November 2002/ Accepted 19 March 2003
The TATA-binding protein (TBP) is a universal transcription factor required for all of the eukaryotic RNA polymerases. In addition to TBP, metazoans commonly express a distantly TBP-related protein referred to as TBP-like protein (TLP/TRF2/TLF). Although the function of TLP in transcriptional regulation is not clear, it is known that TLP is required for embryogenesis and spermiogenesis. In the present study, we investigated the cellular functions of TLP by using TLP knockout chicken DT40 cells. TLP was found to be dispensable for cell growth. Unexpectedly, TLP-null cells exhibited a 20% elevated cell cycle progression rate that was attributed to shortening of the G2 phase. This indicates that TLP functions as a negative regulator of cell growth. Moreover, we found that TLP mainly existed in the cytoplasm and was translocated to the nucleus restrictedly at the G2 phase. Ectopic expression of nuclear localization signal-carrying TLP resulted in an increase (1.5-fold) in the proportion of cells remaining in the G2/M phase and apoptotic state. Notably, TLP-null cells showed an insufficient G2 checkpoint when the cells were exposed to stresses such as UV light and methyl methanesulfonate, and the population of apoptotic cells after stresses decreased to 40%. These phenomena in G2 checkpoint regulation are suggested to be p53 independent because p53 does not function in DT40 cells. Moreover, TLP was transiently translocated to the nucleus shortly (15 min) after stress treatment. The expression of several stress response and cell cycle regulatory genes drifted in a both TLP- and stress-dependent manner. Nucleus-translocating TLP is therefore thought to work by checking cell integrity through its transcription regulatory ability. TLP is considered to be a signal-transducing transcription factor in cell cycle regulation and stress response.
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