Molecular and Cellular Biology, May 2004, p. 3577-3587, Vol. 24, No. 9
0270-7306/04/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/MCB.24.9.3577-3587.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Dalia Pinchasi,1 Idan Pereman,1 Amit Zur,2 Michael Brandeis,2 and Orna Elroy-Stein1*
Department of Cell Research & Immunology, George S. Wise Faculty of Life Science, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv,1 Department of Genetics, Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel2
Received 7 October 2003/ Returned for modification 20 November 2003/ Accepted 9 February 2004
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The anaphase-promoting complex/cyclosome (APC/C) is the ubiquitin ligase complex that mediates the degradation of at least 15 different proteins during mitosis and G1. APC/C degradation substrates include mitotic kinases such as cyclins A and B, plk1, aurora and nek kinases, the metaphase inhibitor securin, the Xkid motor protein, cdc6 and geminin (which are involved in the regulation of DNA synthesis), the product of the APC/C regulator gene fzy, and several other proteins (15). The mammalian APC/C comprises 12 subunits (27) and is regulated by interaction with additional proteins and by phosphorylation of several of its subunits. The large size and complex structure of the APC/C are puzzling, especially in view of the fact that the Apc11 subunit is capable of mediating ubiquitination on its own (12, 21). It is possible that several of its subunits act to connect the APC/C with regulatory pathways that control cell cycle progression under normal conditions and in response to signals, albeit the specific function of most of the subunits is unknown. There has been speculation regarding the role of some of the subunits (e.g., Apc1, Apc2, Apc3, Apc6, and Apc11), based on weak homologies to other proteins. More specifically, the Apc2 and Apc11 subunits are related to components of SCF, another ubiquitin ligase complex (27), Apc1 shares a structural motif with the two large subunits of the 19S cap complex of the 26S proteasome (22). Apc5 does not have sequence similarity to any protein of known function.
Although the Apc5 protein does not contain any classical RNA-binding motif, it was tempting to pursue the possible functional connection between this cell cycle-related protein and IRES function. This was particularly intriguing in view of the fact that the G2/M cell cycle phase was shown to be specifically permissive to the function of several IRES elements, such as those of hepatitis C virus (16), ODC and c-myc (29), and the p58PITSLRE cyclin-dependent kinase (5). Moreover, a certain time window during the course of differentiation also proved to be specifically more permissive for IRES function (3, 10, 31). Apc5 is essential to viability in budding yeast (38) and in Drosophila (1), but its function is not clear. We studied the human Apc5 in logarithmically growing and differentiated human K562 cells and verified its effect on IRES-mediated translation.
We show that Apc5 is degraded during megakaryocytic differentiation, in correlation with IRES activation. Apc5 overexpression inhibits differentiation-induced IRES activation. Apart from the primary nuclear location of Apc5 and its association with the APC/C, it is also associated with heavier complexes and with the ribosomal salt wash (RSW) fraction. This is in contrast to Apc3, which is tightly bound to the APC/C, does not take part in other complexes, and is maintained at a constant level during differentiation. In addition, we show that Apc5 binds to poly(A) binding protein (PABP), that PABP enhances PDGF2 IRES activity, and that Apc5 interferes with PABP-related IRES activation. This is the first report implying an additional role for an APC/C subunit, apart from forming part of the APC/C E3 complex.
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2 (N-terminal part, residues 1 to 395). The SmaI-XhoI fragment of pGAD-DH#134 was inserted into the corresponding sites of pACTII to construct pACTII-Apc5
1 (C-terminal part, residues 395 to 755). pFlag-Apc5, containing the T7 promoter-driven Apc5 coding region fused to Flag tag at its N terminus, was a kind gift from C. Hoog. pACTII-IRP, expressing the GAL4 activation domain fused to the iron-responsive element binding protein (IRP), was kindly provided by M. Wickens (32). pACTII-hPABP, harboring the human PABP1 fused to GAL4 activation domain, was constructed by generating a PCR product using oligonucleotides 5'-GGGGATCCAGATGAACCCCAGTGCC-3' and 5'-GGGGATCCTTCGGTGAAGCACAAG-3', with pGEX2T-PABP (7) as template. The PCR product was digested with BamHI and inserted into the BamHI site of pACTII (Clontech). To generate the different fragments of yeast Pab1 fused to the GAL4 activation domain, the following oligonucleotide pairs were used for PCR, with pKB526 (kindly provided by D. Kornitzer) as a template: 5'-GGGAATTCCCGCATATGGCTGATATTACTG-3' and 5'-GGGGATCCTTGGAATTGTTCGTCAGTAG-3' for residues 1 to 237, 5'-GGGGAATTCCCGCATATGCTGTTGAACGGTC-3' and 5'-GGGGATCCCCATATGGAGCAAATTCTTC-3' for residues 189 to 346, and 5'-GGGGAATTCCCGCATATGGTACTATCACTTCTG-3' and 5'-GGGGATCCTAAGCTTGCTCAGTTTGTTGTTCTTG-3' for residues 345 to 577. The PCR products were digested with BamHI-EcoRI and inserted into the BamHI-EcoRI sites of pGAD424 (Clontech) to generate pGAD424-yPab1(1-237), pGAD424-yPap1(189-346), and pGAD424-yPab1(345-577). pcDNA3-hPABP was constructed by insertion of a BamHI fragment containing the coding region of human PABP into the BamHI site of pcDNA3. Three-hybrid screen and three- and two-hybrid assays. The system described by Putz et al. (28) was employed for the three-hybrid screen and analyses. For the screen, 1,000 µg of the cDNA library from human HeLa cells fused to GAL4 activation domain (14) was used to cotransfect the CG1945 yeast strain (Clontech) together with 500 µg of pDBRevM10-B (19). A total of 5 x 105 transformants were allowed to grow for 10 days at 30°C on histidine-lacking plates supplemented with 0.5 mM 3-aminotriazole (3AT; Sigma). Plasmids were rescued from each of the 230 surviving colonies and used for retransformation together with either pDBRevM10-A or pDBRevM10 (19) harboring a different or no RNA bait, respectively. Only clones that exhibited RNA-dependent and RNA-specific growth were further characterized. Double transformants forming stable three- or two-hybrid complexes were selected for HIS3 expression by dropping 10 µl of a liquid culture grown to an optical density at 600 nm of 0.1 on plates lacking tryptophan, leucine, and histidine and containing 0.5 mM 3-AT. Cells were allowed to grow for 5 or 7 days at 30°C for the two- or three-hybrid analysis, respectively. LacZ expression with the Y190 yeast strain was determined as described before (19).
In vitro transcription and translation. pBS-PDGF-LUC and pBS-LUC (3), harboring the firefly luciferase coding region under the T7 promoter with or without the complete 5' UTR of PDGF2, respectively, were linearized by SacI and transcribed using the MEGAscript kit (Ambion). Capped RNA was prepared using the Ambion mMESSAGE mMACHINE. Poly(A) tail was added using the Ambion poly(A) tailing kit. Krebs-2 cell translation extracts were prepared as described by Svitkin et al. (35). PABP depletion was performed using glutathione S-transferase (GST)-Paip2 prepared from pGEX-6P-2-Paip2 (17) and glutathione-Sepharose 4B beads (Amersham Pharmacia Biotech) according to the method described by Svitkin and Sonenberg (36). The reactions of translation reaction mixtures (14 µl) containing 20 nM each amino acid were programmed with 50 to 100 ng of RNA and incubated at 37°C for 50 to 90 min followed by measurement of firefly luciferase activity with the Promega firefly luciferase assay system and a Turner TD-20e luminometer.
Cells, differentiation, infections and transfections, and luciferase assays. Human K562 cells weregrown and induced for megakaryocytic differentiation by 48 h of treatment with 5 nM 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA) as described in reference 31. HEK293 cells were grown in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium supplemented with 50-U/ml penicillin, 50-µg/ml streptomycin, and 10% fetal calf serum (Biological Industries, Israel). Infection with vTF7-3 followed by transfection using Lipofectine (Invitrogen) was performed as described in reference 8. For overexpression, a multiplicity of infection of 5 PFU per cell was used followed by transfection of 6 µg of plasmid DNA per well of a six-well plate. For the effects of Apc5 and/or PABP on cap-dependent and IRES-mediated translation, a multiplicity of infection of 0.05 PFU/cell was used. Renilla and firefly luciferase activities were determined using a Promega dual-luciferase reporter assay system and a Turner TD-20e luminometer.
Protein separation techniques. (i) Gel filtration chromatography. Logarithmically growing K562 cells (5 x 107) were lysed with 500 µl of 1% TritonX-100-1% deoxycholate (DOC) buffer (1% Triton X-100, 1% DOC, 20 mM Tris [pH 7.5], 50 mM KCl, 10 mM MgCl2, 10 mM NaF, 50 mM ß-glycerophosphate, 1 mM dithiothreitol [DTT], protease inhibitor cocktail) or with 500 µl of 0.2% Triton X-100-0.2% DOC buffer (also containing 20 mM Tris [pH 7.5], 100 mM NaCl, 10 mM NaF, 50 mM ß-glycerophosphate, 1 mM DTT, protease inhibitor cocktail, and 10% glycerol) followed by Dounce homogenization. Five milligrams of total soluble protein was fractionated at 4°C through a Superose 6HR column (Amersham Pharmacia Biotech) equilibrated with a mixture of 20 mM Tris (pH 8.0), 150 mM NaCl, 10 mM MgCl2, 5% glycerol, and a cocktail of protease inhibitors (leupeptin, aprotinin, pepstatin, and phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride [PMSF]) at a flow rate of 0.3 ml/min. Fractions of 0.5 ml each were collected and concentrated by ethanol precipitation.
(ii) Density sucrose gradients. For polysome analysis, we followed the protocol described in reference 23, with modifications. K562 cells were incubated in the presence of 90-µg/ml cycloheximide for 10 min prior to harvest. The washed cell pellet was resuspended in 300 µl of LBA buffer (20 mM Tris [pH 7.5], 50 mM KCl, 10 mM MgCl2, 10 mM NaF, protease inhibitor cocktail without EDTA [Roche], 50 mM ß-glycerophosphate, 1 mM DTT, 100 µM PMSF, 0.5-µg/ml aprotinin, 50-µg/ml pepstatin A, 0.5-µg/ml leupeptin, 50-µg/ml cycloheximide). Forty microliters of LBB buffer (LBA buffer containing 10% Triton X-100 and 10% DOC) was added followed by a short spin and addition of heparin to the supernatant to final concentration of 100 µg/ml. Twenty-five A260 units was layered on a 5 to 45% sucrose gradient prepared in LBA buffer and centrifuged for 2.5 h at 39,000 rpm in a Beckman SW41 rotor. The positions of ribosomal species were determined by scanning the gradient at A260 with Uvicord SII (Amersham Pharmacia Biotech). Fractions of 0.6 ml were collected, mixed with 1 ml of cold ethanol, and incubated overnight at 20°C followed by spinning. The dried pellet was resuspended in 80 µl of 8 M urea, and 25 µl was used for immunoblot analysis.
Preparation of cell extracts and immunodetection. For immunoblot analysis, proteins were extracted from K562 cells by using lysis buffer containing 25 mM KOH/HEPES (pH 7.5), 1% Triton X-100, 100 mM KCl, 10 mM ß-glycerophosphate, 50 mM NaF with freshly added 1 mM DTT, 2 µM okadaic acid, 1 mM vanadate, and Roche Complete protease inhibitor cocktail. For immunoprecipitation of the APC/C complex, proteins from K562 cells were extracted using buffer containing 0.1% NP-40, 250 mM NaCl, 50 mM Tris-HCl (pH 8.0), 20 mM EGTA, 50 mM NaF, and protease inhibitor cocktail (Sigma) followed by incubation with anti-Apc3 (AF3) antibodies covalently coupled to protein A Affiprep beads as described in reference 39. For coimmunoprecipitation of Apc5 and PABP, HEK293 cells expressing pFlag-Apc5 and pcDNA3-PABP were used. Cell pellets were incubated for 15 min on ice in hypotonic buffer containing 10 mM HEPES (pH 7.3), 1.5 mM MgCl2, 10 mM KCl, 0.5 mM DTT, 5% glycerol, Roche Complete protease inhibitor cocktail, 0.2 mM PMSF, and 2-µg/ml pepstatin. Proteins were extracted by a Dounce homogenizer (20 strokes) followed by a 5-min spin at 10,000 x g. The supernatant was used for overnight incubation with anti-Flag or anti-PABP antibodies at 4°C. Protein A-Sepharose or protein G-agarose beads, respectively, were added for a further incubation of 1 h, followed by three washes with phosphate-buffered saline and analysis by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) (8% polyacrylamide).
Antibodies. Human Apc5 cDNA was cloned into pET-28b vector (Novagene) and expressed in Escherichia coli. The recombinant protein, which was mainly nonsoluble, was separated by SDS-PAGE (8% polyacrylamide) and injected as a crushed gel slice into rabbits for the generation of crude antiserum against Apc5. Crude antiserum against eIF3 was a kind gift from J. Hershey, anti-PABP was a kind gift from N. Sonenberg, 4F4 (monoclonal anti-hnRNP-C) was a kind gift from G. Dreyfuss, and anti-Apc3/CDC27 (AF3) used for immunoprecipitation was a kind gift from J. Gannon. Anti-Apc3/CDC27 used for immunoblotting was purchased from Transduction Laboratories, anti-rpS6 was obtained from Cell Signaling Technologies, anti-FLAG was obtained from Sigma, and antihemagglutinin (anti-HA) (12CA5) was made in our lab.
Purification of recombinant proteins and GST pull-down experiment. E. coli BL21(DE3) cells were transformed with pGEX-2T (Pharmacia), pGEX2T-PABP (7), pGEX-6P-2-Paip2, pGEX-HA-RRM3 (17), or pET28b-APC5 for preparation of GST, GST-PABP, GST-Paip2, GST-RRM3, or HIS-Apc5, respectively. Expression of recombinant protein was induced by 0.5 mM isopropyl-ß-D-thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG) treatment for 3 h at 37°C. GST and GST-fused proteins were purified on glutathione-Sepharose 4B beads (Amersham Pharmacia Biotech), and HIS-Apc5 was purified on nickel-agarose beads (Qiagen) as recommended by the vendor. For the pull-down experiment, glutathione-Sepharose 4B beads coupled to GST or GST-PABP were used. Thirty microliters of beads was incubated with the protein of interest in a final volume of 100 µl of pull-down buffer (20 mM Tris-HCl [pH 7.4], 1 mM MgOAc, 100 mM KCl, 0.1% Triton X-100, Roche Complete protease inhibitor cocktail) for 2 h at 4°C followed by three washes with 400 µl of pull-down buffer. Proteins were eluted by boiling for 5 min in Laemmli sample buffer and resolved by SDS-PAGE (8% polyacrylamide).
Filter binding assay and EMSA. For filter binding, a radiolabeled RNA spanning nucleotides 475 to 685 of the PDGF B 5' UTR (IRES probe), or A286-428 (Amersham Pharmacia Biotech catalog no. 27-4110), was added to different concentrations of GST-PABP in a binding buffer containing 10 mM HEPES-KOH (pH 7.6), 3 mM MgCl2, 30 mM KCl, 1 mM DTT, 50-µg/ml tRNA, and 5% glycerol in a reaction volume of 50 µl. The final concentration of the labeled RNA was 0.04 nM. The binding reaction was incubated at room temperature for 30 min followed by filtration through nitrocellulose membrane and autoradiography of the retained RNA. For electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA), 3 fmol of the above mentioned IRES probe (64,000 cpm) was incubated with recombinant GST-PABP, HIS-Apc5, or GST in a binding buffer containing 10 mM HEPES-KOH (pH 7.6), 3 mM MgCl2 30 mM KCl, 1 mM DTT, 1.3 mM ATP, 0.5-mg/ml tRNA, 10 U of SuperaseIn (Ambion), and 5% glycerol in a final volume of 25 µl. After 25 min at 30°C, the complexes were analyzed on 4% nondenaturing acrylamide gel (60:1 acrylamide-bisacrylamide) in a Tris-glycine running buffer containing 1 mM EDTA (pH 8.3). The running time was 2.5 h at 13 V/cm, and the run was followed by drying and autoradiography.
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FIG. 1. (A) The C-terminal half of Apc5 promotes the generation of a stable three-hybrid complex with IRES RNA. pACTII-IRP, pACTII-Apc5, pACTII-Apc5 1, or pACTII-Apc5 2 expressing IRP, full-length Apc5, or the C- or N-terminal part of Apc5, respectively, were cotransformed along with pDBRevM10-B, pDBRevM10-A, or pDBRevM10 expressing the different RNA baits into CG1945 and Y190 yeast strains. Colonies were selected for HIS3 expression and assayed for LacZ expression as described in Materials and Methods. (B) Total extract from K562 cells was immunoprecipitated by anti-Apc3 antibodies (lanes 1) or a large excess of anti-HA antibodies (lanes 2) or was incubated with beads only (lanes 3). HEK293 cells were infected with vTF7-3 and transfected with pFlag-Apc5 (lanes 4) or pCDNA3-Apc5 (lanes 5). The membranes were immunoblotted with antibodies specific for Apc5, Apc3, or Flag tag, as indicated at the bottom of each panel.
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Apc5 interacts with PABP. Apc5, selected in this study as a potential RNA binding protein, does not harbor any classical RNA binding motif. To check its ability to bind RNA, recombinant HIS-tagged human Apc5 purified from E. coli was used for EMSA and UV cross-linking analysis. As we failed to demonstrate the direct binding of recombinant Apc5 to RNA, we assumed that under the selection pressure used for the screen, formation of a stable hybrid complex in yeast cells was mediated by one of the endogenous yeast proteins. A yeast two-hybrid assay was then used to check several translation initiation factors as possible candidates. Whereas no interaction was detected between Apc5 and eIF4G1, eIF4A, or one of the eIF3 subunits (data not shown), a significant interaction between Apc5 and PABP was observed. The qualitative two-hybrid assay, demonstrating the interaction of the human Apc5 C terminus with human PABP and with fragments of its yeast homologue, Pab1, is shown in Fig. 2A. To confirm Apc5-PABP interaction in vitro, a recombinant GST-PABP fusion protein was used for a GST pull-down assay. GST-PABP, but not GST alone, was able to pull down recombinant HIS-tagged Apc5, as well as native Apc5 from extracts of logarithmically growing human K562 cells (Fig. 2B). Coimmunoprecipitation experiments further confirmed the interaction in vivo. Because the anti-Apc5 antibodies recognize only the denatured protein, a Flag-tagged Apc5 expressed from a transfected plasmid was used in these experiments. Antibodies against Flag tag, but not against HA, pulled down Apc5, Apc3, and PABP. Antibodies against PABP were able to pull down a small amount of Flag-Apc5, as detected by the anti-Flag antibody (Fig. 2C).
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FIG. 2. Apc5 interacts with PABP. (A) Yeast two-hybrid system. pGBT9-Apc5(395-755) expressing the C-terminal half of human Apc5 fused to the GAL4 DNA binding domain was cotransfected into CG1945 yeast strain along with pACTII-hPABP, pGAD424-yPab1(1-237), pGAD424-yPab1(189-346), pGAD424-yPab1(345-577), or pACTII-IRP expressing the human PABP, different regions of yeast Pab1, or IRP, respectively, fused to the GAL4 activation domain. Colonies were selected for HIS3 expression. (B) GST pull down. GST or GST-hPABP protein was immobilized on glutathione-Sepharose for GST pull-down analysis and incubated with 1 µg of recombinant His-Apc5 or 100 µg of total protein extract from logarithmically growing K562 cells. Bound proteins were eluted in Laemmli sample buffer and immunoblotted with Apc5 or PABP antibodies. Recombinant GST-hPABP and His-Apc5 were used as markers. (C) Coimmunoprecipitations. HEK293 cells were infected with vTF7-3 and transfected with pFlag-Apc5 and pcDNA3-hPABP. Twenty-four hours later, cell extracts were subjected to immunoprecipitation (IP) with anti-Flag, anti-PABP, or anti-HA antibodies followed by immunoblotting with anti-Apc5, anti-PABP, anti-Apc3, or anti-Flag antibodies as indicated.
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2 orders of magnitude lower than that for poly(A) RNA, in accordance with previous findings (13). We realized that selection pressure applied by the yeast three-hybrid assay enables the detection of interactions that cannot be readily detected in mammalian cells under normal conditions and thus may reflect transient interactions that occur under certain physiological conditions. The interaction of certain regions of the yeast Pab1 with the non-poly(A) sequences (Fig. 3A) supports the notion that yeast Pab1 served as the bridging protein between human Apc5 and the bait RNA in the original screen. The PABP-mediated binding of Apc5 to the RNA was confirmed by a supershift of an RNAB-PABP complex by Apc5 in an EMSA (Fig. 3C). Residues 189 to 346 of Pab1 were able to bind only to the B RNA bait, raising the possibility that this region in the yeast protein contributed to the discrimination against the A sequence in the original screen, but the involvement of additional factors cannot be excluded. Leaving aside the events that led to Apc5 selection in the yeast assay, we set out to examine the biological significance of the interaction of human PABP with human Apc5 and IRES RNA.
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FIG. 3. PABP interacts with IRES RNA. (A) Yeast three-hybrid system. pDBRevM10-B, pDBRevM10-A, or pDBRevM10 expressing the different RNA baits was cotransfected into yeast strain CG1945 along with pACTII-hPABP or pGAD424-yPab1(1-237), pGAD424-yPab1(189-346), or pGAD424-yPab1(345-577) expressing the human PABP or different regions of the yeast Pab1, respectively. Colonies were selected for HIS3 expression. (B) Filter binding assay. The filter binding assay was performed as described in Materials and Methods with 3,000 cpm (0.04 nM) of labeled A286-428 or IRES RNA (open or solid circles, respectively). The percentage of radiolabeled RNA retained on the filter is shown as a function of PABP concentration. (C) EMSA was performed as described in Materials and Methods using IRES RNA as a probe and 450 ng of purified HIS-Apc5, 750 ng of purified GST-PABP, or 750 ng of purified GST. Arrowheads indicate (from bottom to top) the positions of the free, shifted, and supershifted probe.
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FIG. 4. Effect of PABP and Apc5 on translation in vitro. (A) Krebs-2 cell-free translation reaction mixtures that had been pretreated with GST-Paip2 for PABP depletion or with GST as a control were programmed with 100 ng of the indicated transcripts at 37°C for 90 min followed by measurements of firefly luciferase activity. Immunoblot analysis of the translation extracts using antibodies specific for PABP is shown at the top: lane 1, untreated; lane 2, treated with GST-Paip2; lane 3, treated with GST. For each transcript, the value obtained in the GST-treated extract was divided by the value obtained in the PABP-depleted extract. The stimulation values represent the average ± standard error of three independent duplicate experiments. (B) Krebs-2 cell-free translation reaction mixtures preincubated for 30 min at room temperature with the indicated amounts of purified HIS-Apc5 were programmed with 50 ng of the indicated transcripts for a further 50-min incubation at 37°C. Firefly luciferase activity in the absence of Apc5 was set as 100%. The values represent the average ± standard error of three independent experiments. (C) Krebs-2 cell-free translation reaction mixtures preincubated for 30 min at room tem-perature with 1 µg of HIS-Apc5 and the indicated amounts of purified GST-RRM3 were programmed with 50 ng of the indicated transcripts for a further 50-min incubation at 37°C. Firefly luciferase activity in the absence of HIS-Apc5 and GST-RRM3 was set as 100%. The values represent the average ± standard error of three independent experiments.
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FIG. 5. Apc5 represses IRES-mediated translation in a PABP-dependent manner. HEK293 cells were infected with vTF7-3 and cotransfected with 0.4 µg of pLPL, expressing PDGF2 IRES between Renilla and firefly luciferases (10), along with increasing amounts of pcDNA-hPABP or pcDNA-Apc5. The total amount of transfected plasmids was kept constant by compensation with pcDNA-CAT. As indicated, to each pcDNA-hPABP sample was added an additional 1 µg of either pcDNA-Apc5 (open squares) or pcDNA-CAT (solid circles) and to each pcDNA-Apc5 sample was added an additional 1 µg of either pcDNA-hPABP (open squares) or pcDNA-CAT (solid circles). Twenty-four hours after transfection, cells were harvested and assayed for the activity of Renilla (first cistron) (B) and firefly (second, IRES-controlled cistron) (A) luciferases. Basal activity of firefly luciferase, in the absence of additional Apc5 or PABP, was set as 1. The values represent the average ± standard error of three independent experiments. (C) Cells transfected with 0, 0.5, 1, 2, or 3 µg (lanes 1 to 5, respectively) of PABP- or Apc5-expressing plasmid were analyzed by immunoblotting with antibodies specific for PABP or Apc5 as indicated.
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FIG. 6. Apc5 is associated with other complexes, aside from APC/C. (A) Forty micrograms of proteins of the cytoplasmic S100 (C), RSW (R), and nuclear extracts (N) from control (TPA) or differentiated (+TPA) K562 cells prepared as previously described (31) was immunoblotted with antibodies specific for Apc5, Apc3, or ribosomal protein S6 (rpS6). (B) Gel filtration chromatography. Total soluble proteins from logarithmically growing K562 cells lysed in the presence of a high (top panel) or low (bottom panel) concentration of detergents were separated by Superose-6 gel filtration chromatography. Equal volumes from each fraction were immunoblotted with antibodies specific for Apc5, Apc3, or rpS6. The elution point of the indicated molecular masses was calculated by using Unicorn software based on the elution points of thyroglobulin (669 kDa), apoferritin (443 kDa), catalase (232 kDa), and bovine serum albumin (66 kDa), which were used as molecular mass markers. (C) Density sucrose gradients. Twenty-five A260 units of K562 cells was resolved on a 5 to 45% sucrose gradient as described in Materials and Methods. Peaks containing the 40S, 60S, and 80S ribosomal subunits are indicated. Portions of the fractions were analyzed by immunoblotting with antibodies specific for Apc3, Apc5, or eIF3.
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FIG. 7. Apc5 is degraded upon megakaryocytic differentiation. (A) Apc5, but not Apc3, is degraded during differentiation. Fifty micrograms of total cell extract from logarithmically growing (log) or megakaryocytic differentiated (diff) K562 cells was separated by SDS-PAGE (10% polyacrylamide) and immunoblotted with antibodies specific for Apc5 or Apc3. (B) Proteasome inhibitor abolishes the differentiation-induced Apc5 degradation. K562 cells were treated with 5 nM TPA for 6 h followed by further incubation in medium containing 5 nM TPA with or without 30 µM MG132. At the indicated time points of TPA treatment (corresponding to 3 or 14 h of MG132 treatment), cells were harvested and 50 µg of total cell protein was immunoblotted with antibodies specific for Apc5, PABP, or hnRNP-C. (C) Proteasome inhibitor abolished the differentiation-induced IRES activation. K562 cells were transfected with pLPL expressing PDGF2 IRES between Renilla and firefly luciferases or the IRES-less vector pLL. Twenty-four hours after transfection, the cells were treated with 5 nM TPA, and 9 h later, MG132 was added to a final concentration of 30 µM. Forty-eight hours after transfection, cells were harvested and assayed for the activity of Renilla (R) (first cistron) and firefly (F) (second, IRES-controlled cistron) luciferases. The absolute values are presented in Table 1. The F/R values represent the firefly/Renilla activity ratio (arbitrary units) and are the average ± standard error of three independent experiments.
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TABLE 1. Absolute values of Renilla and firefly luciferase activities from the experiment shown in Fig. 7C
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FIG. 8. Apc5 overexpression inhibits differentiation-induced IRES activation. K562 cells were transfected with the IRES-less vector pLL or with pLPL, pLVL, pLML, pLXL, and pLEL harboring the IRESs of PDGF2, VEGF, c-myc, Xiap, and EMCV, respectively, between Renilla (R) and firefly (F) luciferase coding regions (10). Each of the bicistronic vectors was cotransfected along with pEGFP or pcDNA3-Apc5, expressing EGFP or Apc5, respectively. Twenty-four hours after transfection, cells were incubated under normal or differentiation conditions (5 nM TPA). (A) At the indicated time points along the differentiation process, the transfected cells were subjected to immunoblot analysis using anti-Apc5 antibodies. (B) Control and 48-h TPA-treated cells were harvested and assayed for the activity of Renilla (R) (first cistron) and firefly (F) (second, IRES-controlled cistron) luciferases. The D-IRES value is the F/R ratio in differentiated cells relative to that in control cells. The D-IRES value of each IRES in the presence EGFP was set as 1 (solid bars). The D-IRES values in the presence of Apc5 (open bars) represent the average ± standard error of three independent experiments. (C) Apc5 mRNA expression in different tissues. A multiple-tissue Northern blot (human 12-lane MTN #7780-1; Clontech) containing equal amounts of poly(A)+ from specific tissues (adjusted to ß-actin hybridization signal) was hybridized with labeled Apc5 cDNA. RNA size markers (in kilobases) are indicated.
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PABP is a multifunctional RNA-binding protein with at least two distinct RBDs: I/II, which most likely binds to the poly(A) tail; and III/IV, which may function by binding to a different part of the same mRNA molecule (4, 33). The PABP-mediated RNA circularization may be facilitated by the multimerization activity of PABP, conferred by its non-RBD C terminus, which multimerizes upon binding to poly(A) (20). Selection/amplification assays revealed that PABP binds to unrelated RNA sequences with an affinity
100-fold lower than that for poly(A) (13). Our findings are consistent with these data. It was previously shown that polyadenylation stimulates translation of mRNAs carrying picornaviral IRES elements in cell-free systems (2, 25, 26). PABP interaction with eIF4G was shown to be required for such stimulation (24, 34). To the best of our knowledge, the current study is the first one to show PABP's ability to stimulate the activity of cellular IRES. We demonstrated it in living cells and also in a cell-free translation system that confirmed the poly(A) dependency of the effect. However, at this point, it is not clear if the stimulatory effect by PABP is eIF4G dependent. Moreover, this is the first demonstration of a stimulatory effect of PABP on the IRES that can be thwarted by Apc5. In our experimental system, the beneficial effect of transfected PABP on cap-dependent translation was insignificant. This is probably due to the high accessibility of PABP to the 5' cap to which it tightly binds through interaction with the eIF4F complex (30), leading to near-saturation levels of endogenous PABP for its role in cap-dependent translation. The fact that the stimulatory effect on the IRES was observed upon PABP overexpression brings up the possibility that naturally PABP may become available for IRES stimulation only under conditions that inhibit cap-dependent translation. Similarly, the inhibitory effect of transfected Apc5 on cap-dependent translation was insignificant compared with that on IRES-mediated translation, obtained only when PABP was available for IRES activation. The inability of Apc5 to inhibit cap-dependent translation might be due to its inability to compete with eIF4G for interaction with PABP. Moreover, it is likely that Apc5 does not elicit its regulatory effect on the IRES by disturbing the binding of PABP to poly(A): otherwise it would negatively affect cap-mediated translation as well. Therefore, Apc5 is probably working specifically on the IRES by perturbing the PABP-IRES-mediated mRNA circularization. Recently, we were able to confirm by GST pull-down assays using different PABP fragments the interaction of Apc5 with RBDs I and III and more strongly with the N-terminal part of the C-terminal domain of human PABP (not shown). Based on this information, Apc5 may interfere with PABP dimerization in such a way that it can not support the interaction between poly(A)-bound and IRES-bound monomers. Future experiments should elucidate the mechanism by which Apc5 exerts its effect.
Our data suggest a regulatory mechanism that depends on the availability of PABP to stimulate the IRES and the availability of Apc5 to counteract it, in response to specific signals. In the cell, PABP availability and activity are regulated by poly(A)-interacting proteins (PAIPs). In contrast to Paip-1, which stimulates translation, Paip-2 inhibits translation by decreasing the affinity of PABP for poly(A) and by competing with Paip-1 for PABP binding (6, 18). Additional work will help to reveal the physiological signals that control cap-dependent translation in contingence with PABP availability and might uncover an additional mechanism for IRES activation. In the present report, we identified Apc5 as an additional PABP-interacting protein with an inhibitory effect on IRES function and we also showed that during megakaryocytic differentiation, the disappearance of Apc5 is correlated with IRES activation. Further experiments will convey the importance of Apc5 in the complex translational regulation associated with the cell cycle, development, and differentiation.
This work was supported by grants from the Chief Scientist's Office of Ministry of Health, Israel; Israel Cancer Association; the U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation; and the Israel Science Foundation Administration by the Academy of Sciences and Humanities (the Charles H. Revson Foundation) to O.E.-S. N. Koloteva-Levine's fellowship was supported by the Israel Cancer Research Fund.
Present address: Research School of Biosciences, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NJ, United Kingdom. ![]()
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