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Molecular and Cellular Biology, March 2004, p. 2560-2572, Vol. 24, No. 6
0270-7306/04/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/MCB.24.6.2560-2572.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Service de Biochimie et de Génétique Moléculaire, CEA/Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
Received 20 August 2003/ Returned for modification 3 October 2003/ Accepted 22 December 2003
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In addition to its roles in the cellular response to glucose depletion, the Snf1 kinase has also been implicated in the starvation response to other nutrients (55), in meiotic regulation (24, 46), in the regulation of filamentous and invasive growth (9, 33, 45), in resistance to high concentrations of sodium or lithium ions (1), in the regulation of glycogen accumulation and autophagy (58), and in yeast aging (2, 36). In this work, we show that Snf1 is also involved in the cellular response to DNA replication stress, a specific type of genotoxic stress.
Genotoxic stress refers to all situations in which the duplication or the integrity of the genome is compromised. Cells have developed extensive responses to this type of stress, including inhibition of cell cycle progression; transcriptional and posttranscriptional regulation of DNA replication, repair, and recombination pathways; and apoptosis (62). The exact nature of the responses depends on cell type, cell cycle phase, and the specific constitution and extent of the genotoxic stress. Conditions that lead to inhibition or blockage of replication fork progression have been previously called DNA replication stress (44). Hydroxyurea (HU) specifically blocks DNA synthesis by inhibiting ribonucleotide reductase (RNR) (12). RNR inhibition leads to decreases in deoxynucleoside triphosphate (dNTP) levels (32), and the subsequent stalling of the replication forks triggers a DNA checkpoint pathway composed of the Mec1 kinase (homologous to human ATR), the Rad53 kinase (homologous to human Chk2), and a third downstream kinase called Dun1 (also similar to Chk2) (17). Activation of the DNA checkpoint kinases stabilizes stalled replication forks, inhibits late-origin firing, blocks mitosis, and leads to derepression of the RNR genes (17). RNR is a heterotetrameric enzyme composed of two large subunits and two small subunits (12). The large subunits contain the active and allosteric sites of the enzyme. The small subunit contains an oxodiferric center that is required for forming a catalytically essential tyrosyl radical. HU inhibits RNR function by quenching the tyrosyl radical found in the small subunit. The yeast genome contains two genes (RNR1 and RNR3) encoding large subunits and two genes (RNR2 and RNR4) encoding small subunits (13, 57). RNR1, RNR2, and RNR4 are transcribed at the beginning of S phase and in response to DNA damage. RNR3 is significantly expressed only in response to DNA damage, but even under these conditions, it appears to make only a minor contribution to RNR activity, and rnr3
mutants have no obvious phenotypes (11, 13). In this paper, we describe a novel role for the Snf1 kinase in a cellular response to genotoxic stress in concert with the DNA checkpoint kinases.
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TABLE 1. S. cerevisiae strains used in this study
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Dephosphorylation of protein extracts Fifteen micrograms of whole-cell extract (prepared as described above) from CDY61 grown in the presence or absence of 200 mM HU was dephosphorylated with 10 U of calf intestinal phosphatase (CIP) for 30 min at 37°C in a 20-µl total volume of reaction buffer (50 mM Tris-HCl [pH 8.0], 0.1 mM ZnCl2, 1 mM MgCl2). The Mig3-Myc phosphorylation state was then analyzed by SDS-PAGE and immunoblotting as described above. Phosphatase inhibitors (5 mM ß-glycerophosphate, 1.5 mM p-NO2-phenylphosphate, 1 mM sodium orthovanadate) were added to some reactions to ensure that modifications in Mig3-Myc mobility were due to CIP activity.
GST-Mig3 in vitro kinase assay
The MIG3 and YAF9 coding sequences (from the ATG to the last amino acid before the stop codon) were cloned into the Gateway pDEST15-GST (glutathione S-transferase) plasmid by using the procedures recommended by the manufacturer (Invitrogen). GST-Mig3 and GST-Yaf9 were purified from 500 ml of Escherichia coli BL21(
DE3)-pLysS cells containing pDEST15-GST-MIG3 (CDp29) or pDEST15-GST-YAF9 grown in Luria-Bertani medium and induced with 0.4 mM isopropyl-ß-D-thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG) for 3 h at 37°C. Cells were harvested, resuspended in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) plus a complete protease inhibitor cocktail (Roche Biochemicals), and freeze-thawed, which was followed by the addition of Triton X-100 to a concentration of 0.1%, incubation with 375 U of benzonase for 15 min at 37°C to digest nucleic acids, and ultracentrifugation at 100,000 x g at 4°C for 1 h. GST-Mig3 and GST-Yaf9 were purified from the S100 by batch incubation for 3 h at 4°C with 1 ml of glutathione-Sepharose beads (Amersham Pharmacia) previously washed with PBS plus 0.1% Triton X-100 and 10% glycerol (PBS-TG) buffer. Beads were then washed once with PBS-TG, with PBS-TG plus 0.5 M NaCl, and again with PBS-TG. Bound proteins were eluted with PBS-TG plus 20 mM glutathione (pH 8.0).
Snf1-HA kinase was immunoprecipitated from yeast extracts prepared from cells broken in an Eaton press. First, 40 µl of Pan mouse immunoglobulin G (Dynal) magnetic beads were incubated with 2 µl of 12CA5 anti-HA ascites fluid. Beads were washed with PBS plus 0.1% bovine serum albumin and then with immunoprecipitation buffer (50 mM Tris [pH 7.4], 100 mM NaCl, 10 mM EDTA, 15% glycerol) plus 0.1% Triton X-100. Beads were then incubated (40°C, 3 h) with 40 µl (about 400 µg) of whole-cell extract from a snf1
(MCY2916) strain transformed with plasmids expressing Snf1 (5) or Snf1-3HA (41). Beads were washed with immunoprecipitation buffer and then equilibrated in kinase buffer (50 mM Tris [pH 7.5], 10 mM MgCl2, 1 mM dithiothreitol, 10 µM ATP). The kinase assay was performed on the beads with 40 µl (approximately 1 µg) of purified GST-Mig3 or GST-Yaf9, 5 µl of 10x kinase buffer, and 1 µl of [
-32P]ATP (10 µCi/µl) for 30 min at 30°C with occasional mixing. Loading buffer was added, and the incorporation of [32P]phosphate was analyzed with a PhosphorImager following SDS-4 to 12% PAGE and Coomassie blue staining. GST-Snf1 (37) was purified from E. coli BL21(
DE3)/pGEX-Snf1 cells as described above for GST-Mig3 and GST-Yaf9, and its kinase activity was assayed as was done for the Snf1-HA immunoprecipitates. Total calf thymus histones and purified calf thymus histones H3 and H4 for the kinase assays were purchased from Roche Applied Science.
Multicopy suppressors of snf1 HU sensitivity MCY2916 cells were transformed with a yeast genomic DNA library in the multicopy vector pFL44. About 5,000 transformants were screened for growth on YPD containing 200 mM HU. The suppressing activity was checked twice under the same conditions. The SNF1, MSN4, and GIS4 genes were isolated from this screen.
Quantitative RT-PCR RNA was prepared from cells with an RNeasy extraction kit (Qiagen). For reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) analysis, reverse transcription with random hexanucleotide primers was performed with 1 µg of total RNA, 1 mM dNTPs, and 1 µl RNasin for 1.5 h at 42°C, which was followed by a 5-min heat inactivation at 95°C. For each gene, real-time quantitative PCR amplification was performed with an ABI Prism 7000 according to the manufacturer's instructions.
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mig2
double mutant, indicating that Mig3 could not repress these genes when Mig1 and Mig2 were absent (39). It was not clear why Mig3 was unable to functionally replace Mig1 and Mig2. We found that, similar to Mig1, Mig3 tagged with a 13Myc epitope (Mig3-Myc) was rapidly and extensively modified when yeast cells were transferred to galactose, as we observed with a much slower electrophoretic mobility in SDS-polyacrylamide gels (Fig. 1A). Treatment with CIP showed that, just as for Mig1, most of this modification was due to phosphorylation (Fig. 1B). However, a residual mobility shift was apparent even after phosphatase treatment, suggesting that Mig3 received additional modifications other than phosphorylation when cells were shifted from glucose to galactose. It was pointed out that the Myc epitope (GEQKLISEEDLN) contains a sequence that is similar to an Snf1/AMPK consensus phosphorylation site (ØxBxxSxxxØ, where B is a basic residue, Ø is a hydrophobic residue, and x is any amino acid) (50) and that Snf1 might be phosphorylating the 13Myc epitope tag rather than Mig3 itself. To test this possibility, we first determined whether an Asf1-13Myc fusion protein was phosphorylated when Snf1 is activated. Asf1 is a nuclear histone chaperone that has not been implicated in glucose derepression pathways. We found no evidence for induced phosphorylation of Asf1-13Myc when yeast cells were shifted from glucose to galactose (Fig. 1C). Thus, the 13Myc epitope is not necessarily a promiscuous substrate of Snf1 in vivo. We further tagged Mig3 with a triple HA epitope (Mig3-HA) and found that, similar to Mig3-Myc, it was also rapidly and highly modified when cells were shifted from glucose to galactose (Fig. 1C). Thus, Mig3 itself is highly phosphorylated when Snf1 is activated in vivo.
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FIG. 1. Mig3 is phosphorylated and degraded after shifting cells from glucose to galactose in an Snf1-dependent manner. (A) Mig3-Myc cells (CDY61) with a centromeric plasmid expressing Mig1-HA (48) were cultivated in a synthetic complete medium containing 2% glucose and lacking uracil. Cells were then washed once and resuspended in a synthetic complete medium containing 2% galactose and lacking uracil for the periods of time indicated in the figure. Proteins were extracted from TCA-precipitated cells, and Mig3-Myc and Mig1-HA levels as well as electrophoretic mobility were monitored by immunoblotting. (B) Protein extracts prepared from the 0- and 15-min galactose shifts described above were treated with or without 10 U of CIP. Phosphatase inhibitors were added to some reactions as a control showing that the mobility shifts were due to the action of the CIP. (C) Asf1-13Myc cells (CMY1202) and Mig3-HA cells (CMY1274) were shifted from glucose to galactose medium for the indicated periods of time, and proteins were extracted and analyzed by immunoblotting. (D) Mig3-Myc (CDY55) cells in YPD were split in two. One-half was treated with 50 µg of cycloheximide (CHX) per ml, whereas the other half was washed and resuspended in the same volume of YP plus 2% galactose plus 50 µg of CHX per ml; Mig3-Myc protein levels were evaluated by immunoblotting. (E) Mig3-Myc and Mig1-HA levels as well as electrophoretic mobility were monitored in wild-type (CDY61) and snf1 cells (CDY75) at 0 and 15 min after a glucose-to-galactose shift. The positions of molecular weight markers are shown next to the immunoblots.
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mutant (Fig. 1E). The Snf1-dependent proteolysis of Mig3 that occurred when cells were transferred to galactose suggests that Mig3 inactivation contributes to the extensive gene derepression that is observed when yeast cells are glucose depleted.
Mig3 is implicated in the cellular response to genotoxic stress
Since multicopy MIG3 could suppress the dominantly active Rad53-GFP, we tested it for a role in the cellular response to DNA damage. Although we found no DNA damage sensitivity associated with mig3
, mig2
mig3
, or mig1
mig2
mig3
mutants (data not shown), we did find that MIG3 mRNA levels increased when cells where subjected to genotoxic stress. RT-PCR experiments indicated that MIG3 mRNA was increased fivefold when cells were incubated with 200 mM HU for 2 h and increased twofold when cells were irradiated with 80 J of UV light per m2 (data not shown). Microarray analyses also indicated a three- to fourfold increase in MIG3 mRNA in cells incubated with 0.07 to 0.1% methyl methane sulfonate (MMS) for 1 h and a 4.6-fold increase in cells incubated with 0.2 mM 1,3bis(2-chloroethyl)-1-nitrosourea for 1 h (27, 42). Furthermore, a slight but reproducible shift in the electrophoretic migration of Mig3-Myc was observed when cells were treated with a range of genotoxic agents including MMS, HU, UV, phleomycin, and cadmium (Fig. 2A). A mobility shift was also seen for Mig3-HA after treating cells with HU or Cd (data not shown). In untreated cells, Mig3-Myc migrated as a closely spaced doublet of bands. The quantity of the slower-migrating form was increased after genotoxic stress. These bands were converted into a single, faster-migrating band when protein extracts were treated with CIP (Fig. 2B). These results showed that Mig3-Myc was phosphorylated in unstressed cells. After treatment with genotoxic agents, the amount of the slowly migrating, more highly phosphorylated form of Mig3-Myc was increased to various extents. The shift was most obvious with cadmium and MMS and was less so for HU, phleomycin, and UV treatment. An increase in phospho-Mig3 was visible after 30 min of treatment with 200 mM HU and increased slightly during 6 h of treatment (Fig. 2C). The half-life of the Mig3-Myc protein was unchanged after the limited phosphorylation induced by genotoxic stress when cells were grown in glucose (data not shown), a finding which contrasts with the decreased stability of the protein observed after its hyperphosphorylation when cells were transferred from glucose to galactose (Fig. 1A and C). The increase of MIG3 mRNA and the induced phosphorylation of the Mig3 protein in the presence of DNA damage suggested that it is part of a DNA damage response pathway.
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FIG. 2. Mig3 is phosphorylated during genotoxic stress. CDY61 cells expressing Mig3-Myc were grown in YPD (lanes labeled Control, No MMS, No UV, and No HU) or treated with 5 µg of phleomycin per ml for 30 min (Phleomycin), 200 µM cadmium for 1 h (Cd), 200 mM HU for 2 h, or 1% MMS for 30 min followed by neutralization with an excess of sodium thiosulfate (MMS). For UV irradiation (UV), cells were concentrated and spread on the surface of a YPD plate that was then irradiated with 80 J of 254-nm light per m2 in a Stratagene cross-linker. Cells were resuspended for an additional hour in YPD before TCA protein extraction and immunoblotting. (B) Protein extracts were prepared from cells grown in YPD or in YPD containing 200 mM HU for 2 h. The extracts were incubated with or without 10 U of CIP. Phosphatase inhibitors were added to some reactions as a control showing that the mobility shifts were due to the action of the CIP. (C) Time course of Mig3 phosphorylation after the addition of 200 mM HU to CDY61 cells growing exponentially in YPD. The position of an 80-kDa molecular mass marker is shown next to the immunoblots.
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mutant. Surprisingly, Mig3-Myc phosphorylation was still induced by HU in a mec1
sml1
mutant, although the degree of basal and induced phosphorylation appeared slighter than that in the wild type (Fig. 3A). Since Mig3 was phosphorylated in a Snf1-dependent fashion when cells were transferred from glucose to galactose (Fig. 1), we examined whether phosphorylation of Mig3 induced by HU in glucose-grown cells was also dependent on Snf1. As for the mec1
sml1
mutant, phosphorylation of Mig3-Myc was still induced after treating the snf1
mutant with HU, although the degree of basal and induced phosphorylation seemed slightly less than that in the wild type (Fig. 3A). We then examined Mig3-Myc phosphorylation in a snf1
mec1
sml1
mutant. In this double-kinase mutant, basal and HU-induced phosphorylation of Mig3-Myc were greatly inhibited (Fig. 3A). We conclude that Snf1 and the Mec1 checkpoint pathway contribute independently and in parallel to phosphorylation of Mig3.
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FIG. 3. Mig3 phosphorylation in vivo after genotoxic stress is dependent on both Mec1 and Snf1 kinases, and Mig3 is an in vitro substrate for the Snf1 kinase. (A) Immunoblot analysis of Mig3 in vivo phosphorylation before or after a 2-h treatment with 200 mM HU was done with the wild-type (WT) (CDY61), mec1 sml1 (CDY205), snf1 (CDY75), or snf1 mec1 sml1 (CDY212) strains expressing Mig3-Myc. Panels B through D show that Snf1 phosphorylates GST-Mig3 in vitro. (B and C) The Snf1-HA kinase was immunoprecipitated from protein extracts prepared from SNF1-HA yeast cells. A control immunoprecipitation was done on protein extracts from the wild-type untagged strain. The left-hand panels show PhosphorImager scans of SDS-polyacrylamide gels showing [32P]phosphate incorporation into GST-Mig3 and histones H3 and H4 but not into a control GST-Yaf9 fusion protein. The right-hand panels show the Coomassie blue-stained gels. (D) The GST-Snf1 kinase purified from E. coli weakly phosphorylates GST-Mig3 and the histones H3 and H4 in vitro but not the GST-Yaf9 protein. The left-hand panel shows a PhosphorImager scan of the kinase reaction products after SDS-PAGE, and the right-hand panel shows the Coomassie blue staining of the same gel.
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Snf1 immunoprecipitated from yeast is associated with activating ß and
subunits and may conceivably contain contaminating kinase activities that coprecipitate with Snf1. We used a GST-Snf1 protein purified from E. coli to further test its ability to phosphorylate Mig3 in vitro. The GST-Snf1 kinase catalytic subunit purified from E. coli has a weak but detectable protein kinase activity in the absence of the activating ß and
subunits (37). We found that GST-Snf1 could weakly phosphorylate GST-Mig3 and histones H3 and H4 but that it could not phosphorylate a GST-Yaf9 control protein (Fig. 3D). In keeping with its efficient phosphorylation by the Snf1 kinase complex, the Mig3 sequence contains several serines in a context that is favorable for phosphorylation by the Snf1/AMP-activated kinases (50). Mig3 was thus an excellent Snf1 substrate in vitro, which suggests that at least part of the Mig3 phosphorylation observed in vivo is due to direct phosphorylation by this kinase.
snf1 mutants are sensitive to HU, MMS, and cadmium
Since Snf1 contributed to Mig3 phosphorylation in response to DNA-damaging agents, we tested whether snf1 mutants were sensitive to genotoxic stress. snf1 mutants were sensitive to treatment with HU, MMS, and cadmium (Fig. 4) but not to UV or gamma irradiation or to treatment with hydrogen peroxide, camptothecin, or phleomycin (Fig. 4 and data not shown). HU is a specific inhibitor of RNR (12), MMS is a highly reactive alkylating agent that attacks both nucleic acids and proteins (28), and cadmium is known to bind the reactive thiols of proteins such as glutathione (16). Interestingly, treatment of yeast cells with low levels of MMS preferentially inhibits their progression through S phase (53), suggesting that snf1 sensitivity to these agents may involve DNA replication stress. Thiol binding by cadmium might directly or indirectly inhibit RNR activity and DNA replication. However, we did not observe a specific accumulation of wild-type or snf1 mutant cells in S phase when they were treated with a wide range of cadmium concentrations (data not shown). Furthermore, the mec1
sml1
mutant was much more sensitive than the snf1
mutant to HU and MMS treatment, whereas the opposite result was found for cadmium (Fig. 4C and D). These findings suggest that the cadmium sensitivity of the snf1 mutant cannot be accounted for solely by the genotoxic effects of cadmium. The mec1 mutant is highly sensitive to DNA replication stress because it is unable to stabilize blocked replication forks (54), whereas the dun1 mutant is thought to be moderately sensitive to such stress mainly because of defects in gene expression (18) and in the posttranscriptional activation of RNR by inactivation of the Sml1 repressor (61). Interestingly, although the snf1 mutant is less sensitive to HU and MMS than is the mec1 mutant, it is more sensitive than the dun1 mutant (Fig. 4C and D). We decided to focus our further study on the response of the snf1 mutant to HU, as it is the least pleiotropic of the three toxic molecules.
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FIG. 4. snf1 mutants are hypersensitive to HU, MMS, and cadmium. Wild-type (WT) (MCY2649), snf1 (MCY2916) transformed when indicated with pCE101-SNF1 expressing the WT Snf1 (5), pSNF1-HA expressing HA-tagged Snf1 (41), psnf1-T210A expressing the Snf1-T210A mutant (41), or the pRS316 empty vector, snf4 (MCY2634), sip1 sip2 gal83 (MCY4040), and snf1-K84R (MCY2693) strains were diluted to an optical density at 600 nm (OD600) of 0.2, and serial 10-fold dilutions were spotted on YPD plates (A) with HU or phleomycin at the indicated concentrations or on synthetic complete glucose medium (SC) plates (B) with (three upper lanes) or without (three lower lanes) uracil and containing HU at the indicated concentrations. (C and D) Serial 10-fold dilutions of the wild-type (MCY2649), snf1 (MCY2916), dun1 (CDY163), and mec1 sml1 (CDY196) strains were spotted on YPD plates containing the indicated concentrations of cadmium, HU, and MMS.
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subunits for full kinase activity. Budding yeast contains three ß-type proteins. The presence of any one of these ß subunits conferred normal HU resistance to yeast cells (data not shown), but a triple-deletion mutant of all three ß-subunit genes (i.e., a sip1
sip2
gal83
mutant) was as sensitive to HU, MMS, and cadmium as was the snf1
mutant (Fig. 4A and data not shown). Surprisingly, a mutant containing a deletion of the sole
-subunit gene in yeast (snf4
) was much less sensitive to HU than was the snf1
mutant (Fig. 4A). Furthermore, the snf1-K84R and snf1-T210A mutants have greatly reduced kinase activity and nevertheless showed significant resistance to HU (Fig. 4B). K84R mutates a lysine implicated in ATP binding (5, 15), and T210A mutates a threonine residue in the T-loop of Snf1 that must be phosphorylated by upstream kinases to fully activate Snf1 (23, 41, 52). These results suggest that low-level Snf1 kinase activity suffices to confer significant HU resistance to yeast cells. Consistent with this notion, we found no evidence that Snf1 was activated by T210 phosphorylation when cells were treated with HU (Fig. 5), whereas such phosphorylation was readily apparent when cells were transferred from glucose to galactose as reported previously (41).
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FIG. 5. Snf1 is activated by phosphorylation on threonine-210 after transfer from glucose to galactose medium but not after HU treatment. snf1 cells transformed with a centromeric plasmid expressing Snf1-HA (41) were grown to log phase in synthetic complete-glucose medium lacking uracil. HU was added to a concentration of 200 mM to one aliquot of cells, whereas a second aliquot of cells was harvested, washed, and resuspended in synthetic complete-galactose (Gal) medium lacking uracil. Cells were harvested at the indicated times after medium changes, Snf1-HA was immunoprecipitated from protein extracts, and Snf1 activation was monitored by immunoblotting using antibodies directed against phospho-T210 (41). The efficiency of Snf1-HA immunoprecipitation was monitored by immunoblotting using anti-HA antibodies (lower panel).
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sml1
mutant (Fig. 6C), a finding which suggests that snf1 is not defective in stabilizing stalled replication forks. Activation of the DNA damage checkpoints also derepresses to various extents the four genes encoding RNR subunits in yeast and leads to the inactivation of Sml1, an inhibitor of Rnr1 (7, 25, 61). RT-PCR analyses showed that derepression of RNR1, RNR2, RNR3, and RNR4 occurred normally in the snf1 mutant (Fig. 6D). Furthermore, deletion of the SML1 gene did not suppress the HU sensitivity of the snf1 mutant (Fig. 6E), suggesting that Sml1 was inactivated normally in the snf1 mutant in the presence of HU.
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FIG. 6. The snf1 mutant does not show S-phase checkpoint defects during HU treatment. (A) Flow cytometry showed that the snf1 mutant accumulated with a 1 N DNA content after treating exponentially growing cells (Expo) with 200 mM HU for 2 h. (B) Visualization of mitotic spindles in wild-type (WT) (CDY131) and snf1 (CDY132) cells expressing GFP-Tub1 (51) before or after a 2-h treatment with 200 mM HU. As for the WT, the snf1 mutant showed no spindle elongation after HU treatment. (C) Exponentially growing WT (MCY2649), snf1 (MCY2916), or mec1 sml1 (CDY195) cells in YPD were treated with 200 mM HU, and cell viability was determined at the indicated time points. The viability of WT (MCY2649) and snf1 (MCY2916) cells cultivated in YPD without HU for 24 h was 96 and 89%, respectively. (D) The snf1 mutant derepresses RNR gene expression in the presence of HU. The relative levels of RNR1, RNR2, RNR3, and RNR4 to ACT1 mRNAs were determined by real-time RT-PCR analyses for the WT and snf1 mutant growing in YPD with and without HU for the indicated periods of time. White bar is WT in YPD, black bar is WT in YPD plus 200 mM HU, the light grey bar is snf1 in YPD, and the dark grey bar is snf1 in YPD plus 200 mM HU. (E) Serial 10-fold dilutions of WT (MCY2649), snf1 (MCY2916), sml1 (CDY149), and snf1 sml1 (CDY150) strains were spotted onto YPD or YPD plus HU at the indicated concentrations.
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FIG. 7. Genetic analysis suggests that Mig3 is a target of the Snf1 kinase in the cellular response to HU. (A) Log-phase culture of wild-type (WT) (MCY2649) and snf1 (MCY2916) cells transformed with either the vector pFL44 or pFL44-MIG3 (CDp20) were diluted to an OD600 of 0.2, and serial 10-fold dilutions were spotted and grown for 5 days on synthetic complete plates without uracil and containing HU at the indicated concentrations. (B) Log-phase culture of WT (MCY2649), snf1 (MCY2916), mig3 (CDY79), and snf1 mig3 (CDY80) were diluted to an OD600 of 0.2, and serial 10-fold dilutions were spotted and grown for 2 days on YPD plates containing HU at the indicated concentrations.
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mutant
HU inhibits RNR and thereby leads to the reduction of dNTP pools and the stalling of replication forks. The HU hypersensitivity of the snf1 mutant might be due to defects at the level of HU detoxification or to defects in various aspects of the cellular response to RNR inhibition other than cell cycle arrest and RNR derepression. The yeast genome contains two genes (RNR1 and RNR3) encoding large subunits and two genes (RNR2 and RNR4) encoding small subunits (13, 57). However, only the Rnr2 subunit is competent for forming a tyrosyl radical, and it is essential for cell viability. The Rnr4 subunit is thought to facilitate the folding or the function of Rnr2 (6, 19). Deletion of RNR1 or RNR4 in the BY background (20) leads to a slow-growth phenotype with an accumulation of cells in S phase (Fig. 8A and C and unpublished data). We crossed a snf1
mutant to rnr1
and rnr4
mutants to test for genetic interactions. Deletion of SNF1 increased the growth defects and HU sensitivity of rnr4
mutants (Fig. 8B and C). This result suggests that the hypersensitivity of snf1
to HU cannot be explained solely by a defect in drug detoxification. In contrast to rnr4
, we found that snf1
rnr1
double mutants grew at the same rate and showed the same HU sensitivity as did rnr1
single mutants (data not shown). Thus, rnr1
is epistatic to snf1
, whereas snf1
has an additive effect on rnr4
phenotypes. These genetic interactions suggest that Snf1 may act at the level of Rnr1, although other explanations cannot be ruled out.
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FIG. 8. Deletion of SNF1 increases the growth defects and HU sensitivity of the rnr4 mutant. (A) Flow cytometry shows that rnr1 and rnr4 mutants have higher levels of cells in S phase than do the wild-type (WT) controls. Log-phase cells were prepared for flow cytometry as described previously (26). (B) snf1 rnr4 double mutants are more sensitive to HU than is either single-mutant parent strain. Two independent double-mutant segregants of a meiotic cross are shown. Serial 10-fold dilutions of the indicated strains were spotted onto a YPD plate containing 50 mM HU and incubated at 30°C. Note that the snf1 mutant in the BY strain background shown here is less sensitive to HU inhibition than is the same mutant in the MCY strain background used elsewhere in this paper. (C) snf1 rnr4 double mutants grow more slowly than either single-mutant parent on YPD plates at 30°C incubated for the indicated periods of time at 30°C. Three different snf rnr4 double mutants are shown. The WT MATa strain is BY4741, and the WT MAT strain is BY4742. The rnr1 , rnr4 , and snf1 mutant versions of these strains were obtained from the BY yeast gene deletion collection (20).
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rnr4
double mutants grow more poorly than does either single mutant, it is likely that Snf1 is not required just for drug detoxification. Preliminary microarray analyses indicate that there are some gene expression defects in the snf1 mutant treated with HU (data not shown), but these defects do not explain in an obvious manner its sensitivity to HU. Further phenotypic characterization of snf1 is required to pinpoint the reasons for its sensitivity to RNR inhibition.
Cadmium reacts with and depletes cellular glutathione (16). It could thus inhibit RNR activity indirectly by depleting physiological reducing agents required for RNR activity, and it could also potentially bind directly to reactive cysteines of RNR and inhibit its activity. However, the fact that the snf1
mutant is much more sensitive to cadmium than is the mec1
mutant (whereas the opposite is true for HU) strongly suggests that the cadmium sensitivity of snf1
cannot be due to RNR inhibition. The basis of the cadmium sensitivity of snf1
thus remains to be determined.
Mig3 repressor is a novel target of Snf1 and the DNA checkpoint pathway
Overexpression of the Mig3 repressor protein sensitizes the snf1 mutant to HU, and conversely, the deletion of MIG3 slightly increases the HU resistance of snf1. Mig3 is also phosphorylated in a Snf1- and Mec1-dependent fashion when cells are subjected to a genotoxic stress. Mig3 is likely to be a direct target of Snf1 because it is an excellent substrate for Snf1 in vitro, but we do not know if Mec1-dependent phosphorylation is due to Mec1 itself or a downstream kinase such as Rad53 whose activity depends on Mec1. We have ruled out a role for the Dun1 kinase because Mig3 phosphorylation in response to HU was still observed in a dun1
snf1
double mutant (unpublished data). Finally, overexpression of MIG3 suppresses the toxicity of a constitutively active Rad53-GFP fusion protein (40). This suppression does not seem to occur by Mig3 binding the toxic fusion protein because we have not observed coimmunoprecipitation of Rad53 and Mig3 (unpublished data). These results suggest the following model. In agreement with previous work (39), we suggest that Mig3 is a transcriptional repressor of some unidentified target genes when cells are grown with glucose as the carbon source. In the presence of a genotoxic stress, Mig3 is phosphorylated and inhibited in a manner dependent on the Snf1 and Mec1 kinases. The resulting gene derepression would promote cell survival. The increase in MIG3 mRNA levels observed after genotoxic stress may facilitate a return to the basal repressed state after the repair of DNA damage, as has been proposed previously for the Crt1 repressor (25). The relevant target genes regulated by Mig3 remain to be identified. Further work is also required to identify additional downstream targets of Snf1 in this pathway. We sought such targets by isolating multicopy plasmid suppressors of the HU sensitivity of the snf1 mutant. MSN4 and GIS4 were identified as two dosage suppressors that partially alleviated the HU sensitivity of the snf1 mutant (unpublished data). Both of these genes were previously shown to be partial suppressors of the poor growth of snf1 mutants in the absence of glucose and were thus not considered to be specific downstream effectors of Snf1 in response to HU (3, 14).
Unusual aspects of Snf1 kinase function in cellular tolerance to HU
The Snf1 kinase is weakly active when cells are grown in the presence of glucose. Under conditions of glucose starvation, the kinase is rapidly activated by phosphorylation on Thr-210 by distinct upstream activating kinases (23, 41, 52, 59). Snf1 then phosphorylates key proteins acting in several pathways that enable yeast cells to grow in the absence of glucose. Snf1 is also required for growth in the presence of high concentrations of sodium or lithium ions (1). Activating phosphorylation of Snf1 was also observed when yeast cells were treated with high concentrations of sodium in the presence of glucose (41). However, we were unable to observe activating phosphorylation of Snf1 when cells were treated with HU. Furthermore, a snf4 mutant from which the activating
subunit of the Snf1 kinase was deleted retained good resistance to HU even though it is unable to grow in a medium without glucose (5, 34). Likewise, the snf1-K84R and snf1-T210A kinase mutants have greatly reduced kinase activities and are unable to grow without glucose (5, 15, 41), yet they showed some resistance to HU. One explanation of these results would be to imagine that Snf1 kinase activity is not at all required for its function in the cellular tolerance to HU. However, although the snf1-K84R and snf1-T210A mutants had significant residual function, they nevertheless clearly did not work as well as the wild-type protein in conferring resistance to HU. It thus seems more likely to us that a low level of Snf1 kinase activity in association with one of the three beta subunits may be necessary and sufficient to render cells resistant to HU. Quantitative regulation of Snf1- or AMP-dependent kinase activity may contribute to the selectivity of the pathways that they control under different physiological conditions. Mig3 phosphorylation may be an example of such quantitative regulation. Snf1 modestly contributes to Mig3 phosphorylation in the presence of genotoxic stress when cells are grown in glucose, a condition in which the Snf1 kinase is weakly active. This phosphorylation does not induce Mig3 turnover, but genetic data suggest that it may inactivate Mig3 repression of genes involved in HU resistance. In contrast, when cells are shifted from glucose to galactose and when Snf1 is highly active, Mig3 is extensively phosphorylated and rapidly proteolyzed. This complete inactivation would ensure that Mig3 does not interfere with the derepression of genes when cells are starved for glucose.
C.D. was supported by an Allocation Couplée de l'Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris. This work was also supported by grants from the Association pour la Recherche sur le Cancer (ARC grant number 4470) and Electricité de France.
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