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Molecular and Cellular Biology, November 2006, p. 8385-8395, Vol. 26, No. 22
0270-7306/06/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/MCB.02188-05
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Protein Folding Group, Institute for Genetics, University of Bonn, Römerstr. 164, D-53117 Bonn, Germany,1 Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, University of Texas Medical Branch, 105 11th Street, Research Building 17, Galveston, Texas 77555-0620,2 Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Ruhr University, Universitätsstr. 150, D-44801 Bochum, Germany,3 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Science, Vrije Universiteit, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands4
Received 11 November 2005/ Returned for modification 27 December 2005/ Accepted 28 August 2006
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Hsp90 is composed of a N-terminal nucleotide binding domain (Hsp90N), a middle domain (Hsp90M), and a C-terminal domain (Hsp90C) that mediates the dimerization of the protein. A hallmark of the Hsp90 reaction cycle is binding and hydrolysis of ATP (20, 21, 26, 34). Although the catalytic center for this reaction has been identified within the N-terminal domain of the protein, the interplay between this part and the other domains of Hsp90 during substrate activation is poorly understood. Emerging evidence suggests that the middle domain of Hsp90 plays an important role in this process. For example, it has been shown that Hsp90M interacts with Aha1, a cochaperone that stimulates Hsp90's rate of ATP hydrolysis and increases the efficiency of client protein activity (8, 11, 22). Moreover, communication between the middle and N-terminal domains of Hsp90 is essential in vivo (13), probably due to the role of a Hsp90M segment in the proper orientation of the
-phosphate group of ATP for hydrolysis by the N-terminal catalytic domain (15). Furthermore, a peptide spanning 14 amino acid residues within Hsp90M has been suggested as the binding site for a natural client protein (30). Several point mutations within Hsp90M that exhibit temperature-sensitive growth defects in Saccharomyces cerevisiae have been identified by yeast genetic methods (2, 9, 19) or proposed and generated based on the recent crystal structure of this domain (15). Hence, a comprehensive analysis of these point mutations with regard to ATP hydrolysis rate, binding of cochaperones, and activation of natural Hsp90 client proteins in vivo should in turn yield information on the "normal" function of the middle domain of Hsp90 and the sites therein affected by these mutations.
We created site-directed exchanges W300A, E381K, E431K, S485Y, T525I, and the triple mutant F329A/L331A/F332A in Hsp90. The phenotypes of the respective yeast strains and the underlying biochemistry of mutant Hsp90 proteins were compared to mutations T22I and T101T that are located in the catalytic N-terminal domain and cause a general reduction of client protein activity due to their hyper- or hypoactive ATP hydrolysis rate. As a result, we find that v-Src and glucocorticoid receptor (GR), representing two major classes of Hsp90-dependent substrate proteins, are affected in different ways by mutations in the middle domain of Hsp90. This result suggests a role for Hsp90M in discriminating between various types of client proteins during their processes of activation. Moreover, we observed that the ATPase activity of the molecular chaperone Hsp90 is sensitive to segments within the middle domain of Hsp90 that are essential for GR activation but not involved in communication between Hsp90N and Hsp90M domains.
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Protein purification and protein interaction assays.
Expression constructs in pProExHTa were transformed into Escherichia coli BL21(DE3)pLysS cells. Bacteria were grown at 18°C in LB medium supplemented with 100 mg/liter ampicillin and 34 mg/liter chloramphenicol to an optical density at 600 nm (OD600) of 1, and protein expression was induced for 5 h with 0.25 mM IPTG (isopropyl-ß-D-thiogalactopyranoside). After harvesting, proteins were enriched from cell pellets by nickel-nitrilotriacetic acid chromatography at pH 8.0 essentially as described previously (20). Proteins were further purified by ion-exchange fast-performance liquid chromatography using ResourceQ columns or by gel filtration using Superose12 (Amersham Biosciences). For gel filtration analysis, 500-µl samples containing the indicated combinations of yeast protein Hsp90, Aha1, p23, Hop, or p50 (each at 5 µM) in 40 mM HEPES-KOH (pH 7.4), 100 mM KCl, and 2 mM MgCl2 were incubated for 10 min and separated at 4, 25, or 37°C as indicated in Fig. 3 with a Superose12 column equilibrated in the same buffer and using an ÁKTA chromatography system (Amersham Biosciences). When p23 was analyzed for interaction with Hsp90, 2 mM ATP
S was added (8). Fractions of 500 µl were collected for analysis beginning at a 6-ml elution volume. To quantify cochaperone binding, Coomassie-stained sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) gels were analyzed with a Bio-Rad ChemiDoc XRS system, and the binding of p23 or Aha1 to Hsp90 was determined as the percent ratio between cochaperone and Hsp90 in fractions 6 to 11.
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FIG. 3. Quantification of Hsp90 middle domain mutants binding to Aha1 and p23 at 4, 25, and 37°C. Protein complexes of p23 or Aha1 with Hsp90 wild-type and mutant proteins were formed and fractionated by gel filtration chromatography at different temperatures as indicated. Quantification of Coomassie-stained SDS gels was performed using a Bio-Rad ChemiDoc XRS system with the Quantity One software package. Binding activity was determined as the percent ratio of bound p23 or Aha1 versus Hsp90 protein in fractions 6 to 11. One representative gel per experiment is shown. For quantification, experiments were repeated three times, and the error bars show the standard deviations for the three experiments. (A) Quantification of p23 binding to Hsp90 wild type (WT) and Hsp90 mutants. (B) Quantification of Aha1 binding to Hsp90 wild type and Hsp90 mutants.
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-32P]ATP (4 µCi/mM; Amersham Biosciences) for 15 min in a final volume of 20 µl. Aliquots of each reaction were stopped at time points by the addition of 5 mM EDTA and freezing in liquid nitrogen (20). The separation of ADP from ATP was achieved by thin-layer chromatography on polyethyleneimine-cellulose sheets (Merck) in 0.5 M LiCl and 0.5 M formic acid. ATPase activity was monitored by quantitation of [
-32P]ADP by using a liquid scintillation counter. Steady-state ATPase rates were calculated from the linear range of the reactions, and the ATP hydrolysis activity of 5 µM wild-type Hsp90 at 25°C was set to 100%. Inhibition of the ATPase activity by geldanamycin ensured the specificity of the measurement (20).
Yeast methods and manipulation.
Yeast strain
PCLDa/
(19) was used throughout this study, and standard methods for growth and transformation were employed. Cells were cultured on yeast extract-peptone-dextrose (YPD) medium or on SD, SRaf, or SGal selective minimal medium (0.67% yeast nitrogen base supplemented with 2% glucose, raffinose or galactose, respectively, and with nucleotides and amino acids depending on auxotrophy). Intrinsic wild-type Hsp90 of
PCLDa/
on the URA3-containing pKAT6 plasmid was replaced by a Hsp90 mutant gene or by wild-type Hsp90 on the expression vector pTGPD/P82 (19) by the plasmid shuffling technique as described previously (20, 32).
Expression and detection of v-Src in yeast cells. After plasmid shuffling, yeast strains were transformed with Y316v-Src. Cells were selected on SD medium lacking Ura (SD-Ura medium), grown overnight in SRaf-Ura medium, diluted to an OD600 of 0.2, and grown on SGal-Ura medium for 6 h at 25°C to induce v-Src expression. For preparation of cell lysates, cultures were collected by centrifugation, resuspended in lysis buffer (8 M urea, 5% [wt/vol] sodium dodecyl sulfate, 40 mM Tris-HCl [pH 7.5], 0.1 mM EDTA) (28) and treated by ultrasonification for 5 s on ice. For immunoblotting, antibodies 4G10 (Upstate) and EC10 (Upstate) were used to detect phosphotyrosine residues and v-Src protein, respectively. Duplicates of samples were run on Coomassie-stained gels and served as loading controls. An ECL reagent kit (Amersham Biosciences) was used to visualize immunocomplexes. Quantification of blots and gels was performed with a Bio-Rad ChemiDoc XRS system using the Quantity One software package, and immunosignals were normalized to the protein content of the loading control.
Determination of GR activity in yeast cells. For analysis of GR activity, yeast cells were transformed with the GR-expressing plasmid p2HGal/GR/CYC and the reporter plasmid pSX26.1 expressing ß-galactosidase under the control of GR response elements (19). Cells were grown on SRaf-His-Ura medium, and GR synthesis was induced by shifting cultures to SGal-His-Ura medium. Receptors were activated at an OD600 of 0.2 by the addition of 10 µM deoxycorticosterone (DOC) for 1 h, cells were collected by centrifugation, and ß-galactosidase activity was measured using an GalactoStar kit (Tropix) and normalized to the protein concentration of cell lysate that had been determined by the Bio-Rad protein assay kit. The mouse monoclonal antibody BuGR2 (Affinity Bioreagents) was used to detect levels of GR in yeast cell lysates, and quantification was carried out as described for v-Src.
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FIG. 1. Point mutations generated along the Hsp90 sequence and resulting phenotypes for S. cerevisiae. (A) Schematic representation of the domain organization of Hsp90. Positions of amino acid substitutions refer to the sequence of yeast Hsc82. (B) Viability of mutant yeast strains at 25 and 37°C. Shuffled cells were grown overnight in YPD medium, adjusted to 1 x 108 cells per ml, and 10-fold serially diluted. Two-microliter portions were spotted onto YPD agar plates and incubated for 72 h at 25°C or for 48 h at 37°C. Boldface type indicates cells with temperature-sensitive growth defects. WT, wild type.
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With respect to cell growth, client protein activation, or ATPase activity, the F329A/L331A/F332A triple mutant behaved like the F332Q exchange that had been created to introduce a polar amino acid into that hydrophobic patch (15). Hence, it is unlikely that this hydrophobic patch plays a central role in substrate binding, in agreement with previous results (15).
Intrinsic ATP hydrolysis rate of Hsp90 point mutants and stimulation of their ATPase activity by Aha1.
Defects of T22I and T101I mutations in the N-terminal catalytic domain of Hsp90 result from its ATPase hyper- and hypoactivity (Table 1) (25, 33). In addition, R380A and Q384A point mutations that affect residues required for orientation of the
-phosphate of ATP for nucleophilic attack by the catalytic center in the N-terminal domain of Hsp90 were identified in the middle domain of Hsp90 (15). Therefore, mutations of residues of the catalytic domain or those involved in communication between the Hsp90N and the Hsp90M domain led to decreased ATPase activity and compromised client protein activation (15). However, other segments of Hsp90M are not known to affect the ATPase activity of the molecular chaperone (15). To analyze Hsp90M further, we purified the Hsp90 point mutants indicated above and tested their intrinsic ATP hydrolysis rate as well as their susceptibility to Aha1 stimulation at 25 and at 37°C (Table 1). T22I or T101I, serving as a control, showed increased or decreased intrinsic ATPase activities, respectively (Table 1) (25, 33), and the T22I mutant displayed a reduced response to Aha1-dependent ATPase stimulation, as reported recently (33). In contrast, W300A, F329A/L331A/F332A, and E381K exhibited no striking difference from wild-type Hsp90, with ATPase stimulation by Aha1 being slightly decreased for the W300A and E381K mutants (Table 1) (11). The mutations E431K, S485Y, and T525I that map outside the contact region between the N-terminal and the middle domain of Hsp90 showed compromised ATP hydrolysis rate at 25 and at 37°C, an observation that had not been expected (15). The mutant E431K was stimulated by Aha1 to wild-type ATPase activity at 25 and at 37°C (Table 1). In contrast, Aha1 stimulated S485Y and T525I mutants up to the level of nonstimulated wild-type Hsp90 at 25°C. At 37°C, however, Aha1 exerted no stimulation on the low intrinsic ATPase activity of S485Y and T525I mutants (Table 1).
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TABLE 1. Relative ATPase activity of Hsp90 mutantsa
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FIG. 2. Interaction of p23 and Aha1 with middle domain mutants of Hsp90. Purified p23 (left panel) and Aha1 (right panel) as well as wild-type (WT) and mutant Hsp90 proteins were incubated as indicated and fractionated by gel filtration chromatography on a Superose12 column. Fractions were analyzed by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Marker proteins are shown on top (thyroglobulin, 669 kDa; bovine serum albumin, 67 kDa). In the case of p23, a negative control in the absence of p23 (w/o) is included.
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FIG. 4. Point mutations in the sequence of the middle domain of Hsp90 interfere with the activation of the Hsp90-dependent client proteins v-Src. (A) Cell lysates were prepared from normal or mutant PCLDa/ strains expressing v-Src or from empty vector control cells (pRS316) grown at 25°C as described in Materials and Methods. Proteins were separated by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis on 7.5% gels and transferred to nitrocellulose membranes. Phosphotyrosine activity was monitored by Western blot analysis with antibody 4G10. Quantification of protein load was performed with a Bio-Rad ChemiDoc XRS system as described in Materials and Methods and used for normalization of phosphotyrosine activity. One representative blot and gel out of three independent experiments are shown. (B) Phosphotyrosine activity of control cells (pRS316) and of wild-type and W300A cells grown at 30°C. (C) Quantification of v-Src-dependent phosphotyrosine levels from the Western blots shown in panel A. Error bars show the standard deviations from the means for the three experiments. The activity of wild-type (WT) cells was set to 100%.
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60% of wild-type activity (Fig. 5A and B) at both temperatures. The triple mutant F329A/L331A/F332A affected neither v-Src activity nor GR activity significantly. This result suggests that loss of hydrophobicity in this patch has no major impact on client protein activity and, as substrate proteins enter Hsp90 in a prefolded, close-to-native state, they might not primarily bind to exposed hydrophobic side chains of Hsp90 (35). In contrast, the E381K mutation resulted in negligible activity for kinase and hormone receptor activity (Fig. 5C). E431K, S485Y, and T525I mutations are outside the contact region between Hsp90N and Hsp90M (15). The three mutations have a moderate effect on v-Src activity, lowering it to
50 to 75% of that of the wild type (Fig. 4C and 5C), but show a massive impairment of GR activity (Fig. 5A and C). Taken together, these results indicate that W300A strongly affects cellular activity of v-Src kinase but compromises GR hormone receptor activity only moderately (Fig. 5C). The E431K, S485Y, and T525I mutants, however, showed minor effects on v-Src activity but a dramatic loss of GR activity (Fig. 5C). From these results, it is reasonable to conclude that substrate activation of the two types of Hsp90-dependent client proteins, v-Src and GR, has different demands on the biochemistry of the molecular chaperone. Thus, Hsp90 may use individual mechanistic routes to activate the various kinds of client proteins, as demonstrated for the examples of v-Src and GR in this study.
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FIG. 5. GR and v-Src activity in wild-type and mutant Hsp90 yeast strains. Mutant and wild-type strains were cotransformed with GR and the reporter plasmid pSX26.1 containing ß-galactosidase under the control of GR response elements. GR was activated by the addition of 10 µM DOC as described in Materials and Methods. GR-dependent ß-galactosidase activity was measured using a GalactoStar kit (Tropix) and normalized to the protein concentration of the lysate. Activities are averages from at least five independent experiments, and error bars are indicated. The background activity of expressed but not DOC-activated GR was subtracted, resulting in lower specific activities than those reported in previous studies (19). (A) GR activity in wild-type and indicated mutant strains grown at 25°C. (B) GR activity in wild-type and W300A strains measured at 30°C. (C) v-Src and GR activity measured for wild-type and mutant yeast strains at 25°C. Activity of the wild-type (WT) strain was set to 100%.
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FIG. 6. Steady-state expression levels of Hsp90-dependent client proteins v-Src and GR in wild-type and mutant yeast strains. Quantification was performed with a Bio-Rad ChemiDoc XRS system using the Quantity One software package and normalized to the protein content of loading controls. A typical blot for v-Src and GR levels is shown, and experiments were done in triplicate for quantification. Data were used to calculate specific activity of v-Src and GR as presented in Table 2. (A) Cell lysates from v-Src expressing yeast (same as in Fig. 4A, see that figure legend for loading control) were blotted for v-Src protein levels using the specific monoclonal antibody EC10. (B) Cell lysates from GR-expressing yeast were blotted for GR protein levels using the specific monoclonal antibody BuGR2. Loading controls are shown on the bottom. WT, wild type.
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TABLE 2. Activity and accumulation of v-Src and GR in mutant Hsp90 yeast strainsa
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FIG. 7. Effect of cochaperone overexpression on the viability and client protein activity of Hsp90 mutant strains S485Y and T525I. (A) S485Y and T525I strains were cotransformed with empty vector serving as a control or p23, Hop, Aha1, and p50 expression plasmids. Pictures were taken from different plates that had been incubated together at 37°C. (B) GR activity measured for wild-type and mutant yeast strains cotransformed with empty vector, p23, Hop, Aha1, or p50 expression plasmids. Activity of the wild-type (WT) strain was set to 100%.
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W300A is located adjacent to a region (amino acids 327 to 340) that was proposed to serve as the binding region for kinase substrates (30) and forms part of a conformationally flexible loop with an amphipathic structure (15). On the atomic level, W300 makes a hydrophobic interaction with a "shallow hydrophobic recess on the outer face of Aha1" (16), which may explain the observation that the W300A exchange slightly decreases the affinity of Hsp90 to this cochaperone. Our results show that cellular v-Src activity is highly sensitive to this point mutation at 25 and at 30°C, whereas GR activity was only barely affected by the W300A exchange. Since ATPase activity as well as binding to and stimulation by Aha1 were only a little affected by the W300A mutation, other aspects of Hsp90 biochemistry that affect v-Src activation may be altered. When we analyzed steady-state levels of client proteins in the yeast cytosol, it turned out that v-Src but not GR accumulation was conspicuously elevated in W300A cells, while this mutation affected the specific activity of both client proteins similarly. As W300 is in close neighborhood to the loop for kinase binding but not a part of this segment (30), it seems that W300 might be critical for the control of v-Src loading on Hsp90 or for v-Src release from Hsp90. Although higher accumulation of v-Src results in a higher phosphotyrosine activity at 25°C in the W300A strain, such a charge may block the Hsp90 chaperone system for other substrate proteins (3). This effect might gain the upper hand at 30°C, decrease the already low vitality of W300A cells and, as a consequence, lead to a loss of v-Src activity.
Exchanges S485Y and T525I resulted in moderately abridged cellular v-Src activity but disturbed cellular GR activity almost completely, strongly reduced binding of Hsp90 to p23 and Aha1, and harmed the ATPase activity of the molecular chaperone. While the specific activity of GR in these mutant strains was reduced to
1%, the specific activity of v-Src was even higher than in the Hsp90 wild-type strain. S485Y and T525I map to the small
ß
middle-segment domain encompassing residues 435 to 525 of Hsp90's middle domain that interacts via ion pairs with Aha1 (1, 15, 16). Although not directly involved in these interactions, mutations S485Y and T525I interfere with Hsp90 binding to Aha1 either by altering the local conformation of this segment or by adding hydrophobicity to the region and thus obstructing the formation of polar contacts. Ali et al. (1) report in their recent atomic structure of full-length Hsp90 that "the interface between the C domain and the small middle-segment domain flexes on going from the unconstrained M-C structure to the ATP-bound conformation, bringing the small middle domains about 10 Å closer together. This displaces the projecting helix-strand segments, which tilt downwards and become less well ordered." Since cochaperone binding to Hsp90 and Hsp90 ATPase activity are affected by the S485Y and T525I mutations, the conformational change described above could be an additional mode to regulate Hsp90 activity. Therefore, our biochemical data are complementary to the structural data and identify the small
ß
middle domain as part of a structural element with impact on the ATPase reaction cycle of the molecular chaperone. However, it remains to be elucidated by molecular dynamics studies how the movement of the
ß
middle-segment domains mechanistically affects the ATPase reaction, which is controlled by the N-terminal domain together with an additional catalytic loop in the large middle segment (15).
We have shown that v-Src and GR have different demands on Hsp90 biochemistry and that their activity is affected differently by point mutations in the middle domain of Hsp90. Thus, it is plausible to suggest that the working mechanism of Hsp90 is not a unique process but is dependent on the type of substrate protein to be processed. As different kinds of cochaperones contribute to the efficiency of substrate activation, they might regulate the Hsp90 core chaperone for tuning different intrinsic activation programs for substrate proteins that can be executed by the molecular chaperone.
This work was supported by grants from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB 284/project Z3).
Published ahead of print on 18 September 2006. ![]()
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