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J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 278, Issue 42, 40565-40572, October 17, 2003
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From the
Cell Signaling Unit, Departament de Ciències Experimentals i de la Salut, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, C/Dr. Aiguader 80, 08003 Barcelona, Spain and ||Paterson Institute for Cancer Research, Christie Hospital National Health Science Trust, Wilmslow Rd., M20 4BX Manchester, United Kingdom
Received for publication, June 4, 2003 , and in revised form, July 25, 2003.
| ABSTRACT |
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hba1 strain does not trigger the Sty1-specific, Atf1-dependent antioxidant response in the absence of stress. We conclude that the increased multidrug resistance of strains lacking or overexpressing Hba1 is due to the accumulation of Pap1 in the nucleus under non-stressed conditions. | INTRODUCTION |
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Regulation of nuclear transport is an essential process utilized by eukaryotic cells to activate transcription factors or other regulatory proteins (for reviews, see Refs. 4 and 5). In Schizosaccharomyces pombe that is the case for the transcription factor Pap1 and for the MAP kinase Sty1 (6, 7). During normal exponential growth both proteins are mainly located at the cytoplasm, but they rapidly transfer to the nucleus upon stress conditions, where they trigger specific cellular responses (6, 8-10). This relocalization is transient, and the proteins rapidly shuttle back to its inactive cytoplasmic localization. For both proteins it has been described that their nuclear export is Crm1-dependent (6, 11).
Sty1, also known as Spc1 and Phh1, is a MAP kinase required for the cell to survive different stress conditions such as osmotic stress, heat shock, nutrient starvation, or multidrug/oxidative stress (6, 12-14). Some of the stress responses, including osmotic and oxidative stress, rely on the activation by Sty1 of the transcription factor Atf1 (15), a constitutively nuclear protein that upon Sty1 activation turns on the expression of anti-osmotic (i.e. gpd1) and antioxidant (i.e. ctt1) genes among others (14). Phosphorylation of Sty1 by the MAP kinase kinase Wis1 upon stress triggers Sty1 transport to the nucleus, where it transiently associates with and phosphorylates Atf1 (10), which in turn activates transcription of the stress response genes. According to previous reports (11), stress-induced nuclear accumulation of Sty1 is dependent on an active nuclear import process; partial loss of function of Crm1 does not lead to a constitutively nuclear Sty1, but to an enhanced retention of Sty1 in the nucleus upon stress.
The pap1 gene has been consistently cloned as a multicopy plasmid conferring resistance to different types of drugs in S. pombe, such as brefeldin A (16), caffeine (17), or staurosporin (18). When overexpressed or stress-activated, Pap1 triggers transcription of a set of genes whose products constitute a powerful antioxidant cellular response; strains lacking pap1 are hypersensitive to oxidants such as terc-butylhydroperoxide or diamide, heavy metals, and multidrugs. Interestingly enough, similar phenotypes have been described for a
sty1 strain (6). Upon stress, Pap1 suffers post-translational modifications, which may probably hinder its carboxy-terminal NES and impede Crm1 binding and nuclear export (8). Thus, a strain with the crm1-809 allele, exhibiting a partial nuclear export defect at permissive temperature (19), shows constitutive nuclear localization for Pap1. Mutations rendering a defective Crm1 or overexpression of some of the gene products regulated by Pap1, give rise to strains with increased resistance to drugs and oxidants (17, 19-22).
hba1 is one of the few genes whose overexpression was associated with increased multidrug resistance but had not been connected to Pap1 (23). It was described as an essential gene, although it has more recently been demonstrated that the hba1 knockout is viable (20). Hba1 is a nuclear protein (23) that contains a Ran binding domain (24). Benko et al. (20) described the isolation of a strain resistant to caffeine and brefeldin A harboring a mutation at the hba1 locus, although it was claimed that this phenotype might be due to hyperactivity of the gene product rather than to its inactivation (20). The closest homologue to Hba1 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the Yrb2 protein, has been better characterized. Although it was initially reported to have a role distinct from nuclear transport (25), deletion of the nonessential gene yrb2 impairs nuclear protein export (26, 27). It has also been shown that Yrb2 interacts with Ran (25) and Crm1 (26). The role of the human orthologue of Hba1 and Yrb2, RanBP3 (28), in Crm1-mediated export of NES-containing substrates has been recently characterized. RanBP3 has been described to stabilize the interaction between Crm1 and its substrates and influence substrate choice in vitro and in vivo (29, 30). It has been shown not only to enhance the affinity of Crm1 for Ran-GTP and cargo but also for the Ranguanine nucleotide exchange factor RCC1 (31).
In this study we show that overexpression of Hba1 enhances caffeine resistance of S. pombe in a Pap1-dependent manner. We demonstrate that the same effect is accomplished by deletion of the hba1 gene; that is, the lack of function of Hba1 confers caffeine resistance to strains harboring the mutation. Furthermore, either deletion of hba1 or overexpression of its gene product trigger nuclear accumulation of Pap1, and in those strains the transcription of Pap1-dependent genes is constitutively increased. Another reported substrate of Crm1, the MAP kinase Sty1, also shows constitutive nuclear localization under those conditions, although its specific antioxidant response is not switched on in this case. Implications of these results regarding the role of Hba1 in nuclear export and the activation mechanisms of Pap1 and Sty1 are discussed.
| EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES |
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pap1 strain EHH108 (h- leu1 his2 ura4 pap1::ura4- (8)), the crm1 mutant TP113.6B (h+ leu1 ura4 crm1-809) (19), and the
sty1 strain NT224 (h- leu1 ura4 sty1-1). We used strain EHH14 (EHH108 with an integrated copy of the wild-type GFP.pap1 chimeric gene under the control of the nmt (no message in thiamine) promoter (8)) to visualize the localization of a GFP. Pap1 fusion as well as strain EHH14.C501A,C523A,C532A, encoding a constitutively nuclear GFP.Pap1 mutant fusion (8). Dr. Benko kindly provided strains caf1-21 (ura4-D18 h-) and caf1+::ura4+ (ura4-D18 ade6-704 leu1-32 h+) harboring mutations at the hba1 locus (20). Strain caf1+::ura4+ was transformed with linearized plasmid p85.41x, which contains the nmt-driven GFP.pap1 gene (see above); yielding strain was named EA33. To construct an S. pombe strain expressing a GFP-tagged version of Hba1, we designed specific primers to PCR-amplify a fragment containing the carboxyl-terminal hba1-coding sequence fused in-frame to a GFP-coding sequence followed by the heterologous selectable marker kanMX6 and a 3', non-coding hba1 sequence using as template plasmid pFA6a-GFP(S65T)-kanMX6 (32). Strain HM123 was transformed with the linear fragment, and recombinants were selected on their ability to grow on G418/Geneticin (Invitrogen), as described before (32). The resulting strain was named EHH2 (HM123 with hba1::GFP linked to kanMX6). The same strategy was used to generate strain EHH5 (HM123 with sty1::GFP linked to kanMX6), EA16 (TP113.6B with sty1::GFP linked to kanMX6), and EA15 (wild-type PN513 with sty1::GFP linked to kanMX6). We then crossed EA15 with the caf1+::ura4+ strain and selected for ura+, kanamycin-resistant clones, yielding strain EA17 (h- leu1 ura4 caf1+::ura4+ sty1::GFP linked to kanMX6). To construct an S. pombe strain with the pap1 and hba1 loci deleted, we first transformed wild-type strain PN513 with a linear fragment containing pap1::kanMX6, obtained by PCR amplification using pap1-specific primers and plasmid pFA6a-kanMX6 as a template (32). We then crossed the resulting strain, AV4 (h- leu1 ura4 pap1::kanMX6) with the
hba1 strain caf1+::ura4+ and selected for ura+, kanamycin-resistant clones, yielding strain AV6 (h- leu1 ura4 caf1+::ura4 ade+ pap1::kanMX6). We constructed a double
hba1
sty1 strain transforming the caf1+::ura4+ strain with a linear fragment containing sty1::kanMX6, obtained by PCR amplification using sty1-specific primers and plasmid pFA6a-kanMX6 as a template, as described above. We named this strain EA32. Cells were grown in rich medium (YE5S) or in synthetic minimal medium (EMM2) as described (33, 34). PlasmidsWe used plasmid pRep41-GFP.pap1 (6) to trigger the expression of a GFP.Pap1 fusion protein in S. pombe cells. We PCR-amplified the hba1-coding sequence from an S. pombe cDNA library using primers specific for the gene and containing BamHI and SmaI restriction sites. After digestion of pRep41x (35) with BamHI and SmaI, we subcloned the digested PCR fragment containing the hba1 gene, yielding plasmid p20.41x. The same strategy was followed to clone the crm1 open reading frame in pRep41x, yielding plasmid p30.41x.
Caffeine Sensitivity AssayS. pombe strains were grown in liquid minimal (MM) or rich (YE5S) media to an absorbance at 600 nm of 0.5. Cells were then diluted in the same media, and the indicated number of cells in 5 µl was spotted onto MM or YE5S agar media with or without 30 mM caffeine. The spots were allowed to dry, and the plates were incubated at 30 °C for 2-4 days.
RNA AnalysisCells grown in minimal media to a final absorbance at 600 nm of 0.5 were left either untreated or were treated for the indicated times with H2O2 at the indicated concentrations or with 4 mM diethylmaleate, also known to trigger Pap1 activation (8). 25-50 ml of yeast cultures were then centrifuged at 1500 rpm for 3 min and washed with H2O, and cell pellets were immediately frozen in dry ice. Each sample was then resuspended in 0.4 ml of AE buffer (50 mM sodium acetate, pH 5.3, 10 mM EDTA, pH 8.0). Sodium dodecyl sulfate was then added to a final concentration of 1%, and proteins and DNA were extracted by adding 0.3 ml of acidic phenol and incubation at 65 °C for 5 min. Samples were cooled down in dry ice, 0.3 ml of chloroform was added, and the aqueous phase was separated by centrifugation at 10,000 x g for 2 min at 4 °C. After chloroform extraction, RNA was precipitated with ethanol. RNA concentration was determined by absorbance at 260 nm, and equal amounts (10 µg) were loaded in formaldehyde-agarose gels (36) containing ethidium bromide to confirm equal loading by visualizing ribosomal RNA. RNA was then transferred to GeneScreen Plus nylon membranes (PerkinElmer Life Sciences). Hybridization and washes were performed as recommended by the manufacturer. The blots were hybridized with the Pap1-dependent apt1 probe containing the complete open reading frame of the p25-encoding gene or with the Sty1-, Atf1-dependent gpx1 probe, containing a 419-bp fragment of the glutathione peroxidase-encoding gene. Probes were labeled with [
-32P]dCTP using a random primer system from Roche Applied Science.
Western Blot AnalysisTo purify a GST.Hba1 fusion protein, Escherichia coli FB810 cells (37) transformed with the pGEX-derivative plasmid pGST.hba1 were inoculated into LB broth (38) with 100 µg/ml of ampicillin and incubated at 37 °C for
16 h with vigorous shaking. The overnight culture was diluted 25-fold into 100 ml of fresh medium and incubated at 37 °C until the culture reached an optical density of 1 at 600 nm. Isopropyl-1-thio-
-D-galactopyranoside was then added to a final concentration of 0.5 mM, and shaking was continued at 25 °C for 4 h. The cells were then harvested, and the cell pellet was frozen. Cells were then resuspended in 4 ml of STET extraction buffer (50 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.0, 150 mM sodium chloride, 1 mM EDTA pH 8.0, 1% Triton X-100) and broken by sonication. Debris and unbroken cells were removed by centrifugation. GST-Hba1 was bound to glutathione Stransferase-Sepharose (Amersham Biosciences) beads following manufacturer's instructions. Polyclonal antisera were obtained at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund Biological Resources following a standard rabbit immunization protocol. For immunoblotting, samples of S. pombe extracts were electrophoresed in SDS-polyacrylamide gels and transferred to Immobilon P membranes (Millipore) with a Bio-Rad transfer unit. The filters were probed with the anti-Hba1 antisera, and bound antibody was detected with horseradish peroxidase-conjugated anti-rabbit IgG antibodies (Amersham Biosciences). Phosphorylated Sty1 was detected with a commercial anti-p38 MAP kinase antibody (New England Biolabs).
Fluorescence Microscopy25 µl of exponentially growing yeast cultures were loaded onto poly-L-lysine-coated multi-well slides, and the remaining suspension was immediately withdrawn by aspiration. Three microliters of Hoescht 33342 (1 µg/ml in 50% glycerol) was added, and a coverslip was placed over the microscope slide. Fluorescence microscopy was carried out on a Nikon Eclipse E600 microscope at 100x magnification. Images were captured by use of an Orca II Dual Scan Cooled CCD Camera (Hamamatsu) using Hamamatsu Aqua-Cosmos 2.0 software.
| RESULTS |
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Pap1 overexpression or activation has been frequently associated to multidrug resistance. We determined that Hba1 overexpression could also lead not only to brefeldin A resistance, as described by Rose and co-workers (23), but also to caffeine resistance (Fig. 1C). Such phenotype was abolished when Hba1 was overexpressed in a
pap1 strain (Fig. 1C), indicating that the multidrug resistant phenotype conferred by Hba1 overexpression is dependent on Pap1. Whereas loss of function of the nuclear exporter Crm1 leads to a nuclear and constitutively active Pap1 (6, 17), overexpression of Hba1 can also trigger Pap1 activation, which led us to believe that Hba1 could have some role in Pap1 nuclear import.
Lack of Function of Hba1 Also Induces Pap1 ActivationA strain carrying a mutation at the hba1 locus was isolated in a screening for caffeine resistant S. pombe cells (20). The authors claimed that the caffeine resistance conferred by the mutated allele, named caf1-21, had to be consequence of hyperactivity rather than inactivation of the gene product (20). We PCR-amplified and sequenced the mutated allele, detecting a GC to TA nonsense mutation at base pair 265, leading to an incomplete protein of only 88 residues (full-length Hba1 is 399 amino acids long). We further confirmed the absence of a full-length Hba1 protein in the caf1-21 strain by Western blot analysis of total protein extracts, using antibodies raised against GST.Hba1 (Fig. 2A). Hba1 could be detected in extracts prepared from a wild-type strain as a single band of
60 kDa with denaturing electrophoresis (lane 1, Fig. 2A). Overexpression of the protein in a strain carrying plasmid p20.41x led to a >10-fold increase in Hba1 concentration (lane 4, Fig. 2A). Extracts from strains carrying the caf1-21 allele or deleted for hba1 showed no detectable full-length Hba1 (lanes 3 and 2, respectively, Fig. 2A).
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Once confirmed that the caffeine-resistant caf1-21 strain was defective for Hba1, we tested whether Pap1 cellular localization was altered in this strain. A GFP.Pap1 fusion protein was constitutively nuclear in a caf1-21 background (data not shown), as it was in a
hba1 strain (Fig. 2B). Northern blot analysis confirmed that either multiple copies or deletion of hba1 triggered Pap1-dependent transcription of the p25/apt1 gene even under non-stressed conditions and that such an effect was totally dependent upon the presence of Pap1 (Fig. 2C). Thus, the activation of the Pap1-dependent antioxidant/multidrug response of a strain deleted for hba1 led to a caffeine-resistant phenotype, as shown in Fig. 2D, whereas a double hba1/pap1 knockout strain showed a sensitivity to the drug similar to a wild-type or a
pap1 strain.
Hba1 Is Required for the Nuclear Export of Both Pap1 and Sty1Originally, Hba1 was described as a protein containing a Ran-binding protein domain, and therefore, it could be involved in either nuclear import or export (23, 24). Hba1 has homology to the S. cerevisiae protein Yrb2 and to the human RanBP3, especially at the Ran binding domain (Fig. 3A). When overexpressed all three orthologs were localized to the nucleus (23, 25, 30). We decided to confirm Hba1 nuclear localization expressing an Hba1.GFP fusion protein at wild-type level. As shown in Fig. 3B, the fusion protein conferred nuclear staining by fluorescence microscopy. We also performed confocal microscopy studies of the Hba1.GFP strain, which further demonstrated that the fusion protein was located at the nuclear matrix and not at the nuclear membrane (data not shown). That seems to indicate that Hba1 participates in the protein export pathway rather that in protein nuclear import.
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Pap1 is not the only oxidative stress sensor which activity is regulated at the level of cellular localization. Sty1 also concentrates at the nucleus upon H2O2 stress (11). We decided to study how Hba1 function could affect the localization of NES-containing cargo Sty1 (Fig. 4A). Inhibition of nuclear export with the Crm1 binding drug leptomycin B or expression of the GFP fusions in a crm1 mutant background (19) resulted in nuclear localization of GFP.Pap1 (Fig. 4B) as it had been described before (6, 9, 39). A Sty1.GFP fusion, expressed at wild-type levels, also accumulated in the nucleus upon Crm1 inhibition (both by leptomycin B treatment or in the crm1 mutant background), even though the same crm1 mutation had been reported to trigger an enhanced retention of Sty1 in the nucleus after stress withdrawal but not the basal nuclear localization of Sty1 (11).
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Both GFP.Pap1 and Sty1.GFP fusion proteins had nuclear localization under non-stressed conditions when Hba1 function was impaired either by deletion or overexpression of the hba1 gene (Fig. 4B). Therefore, Hba1 seems to participate, together with Crm1, in both Pap1 and Sty1 export. The protein levels of GFP.Pap1 and Sty1.GFP were not modified in the different strain backgrounds, as determined by Western blot analysis (data not shown).
Nuclear Accumulation of Pap1, but Not of Sty1, Triggers an Antioxidant Response as Well as Growth Defects and Caffeine-resistant PhenotypesRecent studies found that S. pombe mounts two separate responses upon H2O2 stress, an adaptive response to low levels of H2O2, which protects the cell from subsequent exposures to higher concentrations of H2O2, and an acute or survival response, which allows the cell to survive a sudden and potentially lethal exposure to H2O2 (13, 40). Pap1 is required for the response to low level H2O2 stress, whereas Sty1/Atf1 regulate the response to high levels of the oxidant. Combination of Pap1-dependent and Sty1/Atf1-dependent responses would protect S. pombe against a wide range of oxidants and drugs at different concentrations (40).
Drug and antioxidant resistance of strains with impaired Hba1 function could be due to nuclear accumulation of either Pap1, Sty1, or both. Therefore, it was essential to verify whether the Sty1-dependent transcriptional response was also constitutively active in those strains and could, therefore, exert some protective role against caffeine. Sty1 is phosphorylated and transferred to the nucleus by a variety of environmental stimuli including oxidative, osmotic, and physical stresses (41-43). First, we analyzed whether the change of Sty1 cellular sublocalization upon export defects was concomitant with a phosphorylation of the MAP kinase. A wild-type and a
hba1 strain were subjected to stress by hydrogen peroxide (Fig. 5A) and sodium arsenite (data not shown), and phosphorylation of Sty1 was determined by Western blot analysis using an anti-phospho-p38 MAPK antibody. No significant differences at the basal or induced levels were detected between both strains. Transcription of the gene gpx1, encoding glutathione peroxidase, upon oxidative stress has recently been reported to depend exclusively on Sty1 and Atf1 activation but not on Pap1 (40). As shown in Fig. 5B, expression of gpx1 was unaffected in a
hba1 strain compared with a wild-type strain, both at the basal and oxidative stress-induced levels. Unlike Pap1, nuclear localization of Sty1 upon Hba1 loss-of-function is not concomitant with a Sty1 gain-of-function, since it is not phosphorylated in the absence of stress, and its specific antioxidant response is not constitutively triggered. We confirmed this fact analyzing the multidrug resistant phenotype of a double knockout strain; cells lacking both Hba1 and Sty1 retained the caffeine resistance phenotype of a
hba1 strain (Fig. 5C).
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According to the previous data, the phenotypes observed in strains lacking a functional Hba1 (growth defects (44) and increased caffeine tolerance; see Figs. 1 and 2) could be exclusively due to the constitutive nuclear location of Pap1. To test this hypothesis we analyzed the phenotype of a strain, EHH14.C501A,C523A,C532A, harboring an integrated GFP. pap1 allele encoding a fusion protein with three cysteine to alanine substitutions close to the NES of Pap1, which renders a constitutively nuclear and transcriptionally active GFP.Pap1 (8). As shown in Fig. 6A, such a strain is as resistant to the presence of 30 mM caffeine in plates as the hba1 knockout when compared with a wild-type strain. Furthermore, the same growth defects were observed in the
hba1 strain and in the EHH14.C501A,C523A,C532A strain, as reflected by their reduced colony size (data not shown) and their impaired growth curves, which presented an elongated duplication time (3.08 ± 0.02 h for the wild-type strain (HM123), 4.82 ± 0.38 h for
hba1 strain (caf1+::ura4+), and 5.10 ± 0.65 h for EHH14.C501A,C523A,C532A strain, all grown in minimal media at 30 °C) and a reduced maximum of absorbance at 600 nm when compared with a wild-type strain (Fig. 6B).
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| DISCUSSION |
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Many of the gene products isolated through genetic screenings to multidrug resistance exert their protective role due to its connection to the Pap1-dependent transcriptional response. Thus, overexpression of the multidrug ABC-type transporters Hba2 and Pmd1 confer pleiotropic multidrug resistance (21, 22); interestingly, they both are transcriptionally up-regulated by Pap1 in response to oxidative stress (6). So far the loss-of-function of three gene products can lead to Pap1 nuclear accumulation and, consequently, to activated Pap1-dependent transcription: Crm1, Hba1, and thioredoxin reductase. Crm1 and Hba1 are involved in the nuclear export of Pap1 under non-stressed conditions, and in their absence Pap1 accumulates in the nucleus (6, 9, 19). The interaction of Pap1 with the export machinery requires that some cysteine residues of the protein are kept in the thiol, reduced state. Thus, loss of thioredoxin reductase activity also leads to Pap1 basal nuclear localization probably because the cysteines are oxidized even in the absence of oxidative stress.2 In any case, nuclear accumulation of this transcription factor and activation of Pap1-dependent gene expression are concomitant, indicating that the post-transcriptional modifications suffered by the protein upon signal activation may alter its conformation and affect its interaction with the export complexes, but those changes are not required for its positive modulation of the transcription machinery.
We have shown that constitutive activation of Pap1 not only confers multiple drug resistance, but it also impairs growth. The level of reactive oxygen species and the intracellular redox state are tightly modulated by enzymatic and non-enzymatic cellular activities (45). At least for E. coli it has been described that the steady-state concentrations of H2O2 are kept within a 2-fold range among different strains by modulating the levels of catalase (46). Furthermore, those levels are very similar to the ones described for mammalian cells (47), suggesting that H2O2 may be required as a mitogenic signal. Constitutive activation of Pap1 could lead to an increase in the cellular battery of antioxidant activities and to a decrease in the steady-state concentration of intracellular H2O2, which could impair cell growth. Another possible explanation is that Pap1 could be exerting a direct role in cell cycle arrest upon mild, mutagenic oxidative stress, and nuclear accumulation of the protein upon export inhibition might constitutively decrease the growth rate of the cells.
The results shown here have important implications regarding Sty1 regulation of gene expression. Sty1 activity has been described to rely on its level of phosphorylation and is, therefore, regulated by its immediate upstream kinase, Wis1, and two phosphatases, Pyp1 and Pyp2. Sty1 phosphorylation and Sty1 nuclear translocation have always been described to be linked. We describe here that, as for Pap1, inhibition of the export machinery (either of Crm1 or of Hba1) can lead to constitutive nuclear accumulation of the MAP kinase, contrary to what had been previously described (11). Nevertheless, that change of cellular sub-localization under uninduced conditions does not dramatically modify either the basal level of phosphorylation of Sty1 nor its transcriptional activity. Furthermore, the constitutively nuclear Sty1 kinase seems to respond to stress following similar kinetics to those described for cytosolic Sty1, even though its main regulators may be physically separated in different cell compartments. It has been described that Wis1 and the tyrosine phosphatases Pyp1/2 are always kept at the cytosol (11); therefore, the constitutive nuclear accumulation of Sty1 upon export inhibition could lead to transient isolation from its regulatory proteins. Nevertheless, recent work indicates that Wis1 could also accumulate at the nucleus upon certain types of stress (48). Further work will be required to unravel how the stress-induced kinetics of Sty1 activation in a wild-type versus a
hba1 strains can be so similar.
The role of Hba1 on Crm1-dependent export of NES-containing cargoes is not clear and will need further elucidation. If export efficiency in vivo correlates with cargo exporter affinity in vitro then Crm1 affinity for NES-containing substrates is not sufficient to guarantee a rapid and efficient export in vivo; under those circumstances, Hba1 and other family members could act as cofactors of such multiple export interactions and stabilize the otherwise weak tripartite complex formed by Crm1-RanGTP export cargo. Regarding this role of Hba1 as an export cofactor, it is not surprising that both deletion of hba1 or overexpression of its gene product can lead to the same export defect phenotype, since the same ability to inhibit export complex formation at higher concentrations have been previously described for the S. cerevisiae homologue Yrb2 in vivo (26, 27) and for the human homologue RanBP3 in vivo and in vitro (29). An excess of any of these cofactor family members could be sequestering Ran-GTP or even the putative exported cargoes, removing them, and inhibiting their export, since Crm1 concentration would be limiting. It is also worth noting that some NES-containing proteins, such as the NES of protein kinase inhibitor, do not seem to require Hba1 function to be exported, at least in S. pombe cells.3 It remains unclear which substrates do require the participation of these export cofactors. Hba1 might be working as a scaffold to promote the efficient assembly of export complexes, probably degreasing the Kd of Crm1 for some but not all NES-containing substrates. Another interesting feature of Hba1 is that it is a phosphoprotein (23), although it has not been described as a stress- or drug-dependent phosphorylation in vivo.3 In fact, Sty1 MAP kinase cannot phosphorylate Hba1 in vitro,3 ruling out the possibility that the in vivo observed phosphorylation of Hba1 is Sty1-dependent.
| FOOTNOTES |
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Recipient of a predoctoral fellowship from the Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. ![]()
¶ Recipient of a predoctoral fellowship from the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología of Spain. ![]()
** Supported by a European Molecular Biology long term fellowship. To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel.: 34-93-542-2891; Fax: 34-93-542-2802; E-mail: elena.hidalgo{at}upf.edu.
1 The abbreviations used are: NES, nuclear export signal; MAP, mitogen-activated protein; GFP, green fluorescent protein; GST, glutathione S-transferase. ![]()
2 A. P. Vivancos, E. A. Castillo, J. Ayté, and E. Hidalgo, unpublished data. ![]()
3 E. A. Castillo, J. Auté, and E. Hidalgo, unpublished data. ![]()
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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| REFERENCES |
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