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J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 279, Issue 14, 13764-13768, April 2, 2004
Glycogen Synthase Sensitivity to Glucose-6-P Is Important for Controlling Glycogen Accumulation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae*![]() ![]() From the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Indiana University School of Medicine and the Indiana University Center for Diabetes Research, Indianapolis, Indiana 46202
Received for publication, November 11, 2003 , and in revised form, January 12, 2004.
Glycogen is a storage form of glucose utilized as an energy reserve by many organisms. Glycogen synthase, which is essential for synthesizing this glucose polymer, is regulated by both covalent phosphorylation and the concentration of glucose-6-P. With the yeast glycogen synthase Gsy2p, we recently identified two mutants, R579A/R581A/R582A and R586A/R588A/R591A, in which multiple arginine residues were mutated to alanine that were completely insensitive to activation by glucose-6-P in vitro (Pederson, B. A., Cheng, C., Wilson, W. A., and Roach, P. J. (2000) J. Biol. Chem. 275, 2775327761). We report here the expression of these mutants in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and, as expected from our findings in vitro, they were not activated by glucose-6-P. The R579A/R581A/R582A mutant, which is also resistant to inhibition by phosphorylation, caused hyperaccumulation of glycogen. In contrast, the mutant R586A/R588A/R591A, which retains the ability to be inactivated by phosphorylation, resulted in lower glycogen accumulation when compared with wild-type cells. When intracellular glucose-6-P levels were increased by mutating the PFK2 gene, glycogen storage due to the wild-type enzyme was increased, whereas that associated with R579A/R581A/R582A was not greatly changed. This is the first direct demonstration that activation of glycogen synthase by glucose-6-P in vivo is necessary for normal glycogen accumulation.
Many organisms utilize glucose as a preferred nutrient (1). After entering a cell through glucose transporters, it is converted to glucose-6-P, which can then be processed through several metabolic pathways, depending on the cell type. Glucose-6-P can enter glycolysis, the pentose phosphate pathway, or the glycogenic pathway. In the last mentioned pathway, glucose-6-P is converted via UDP-glucose to glycogen, which serves as a glucose and energy reserve (2, 3). Consistent with its placement at a metabolic branch point, glucose-6-P has been viewed as an important metabolic regulator (2, 4). It is an allosteric inhibitor of glycogen phosphorylase (5, 6) and an allosteric activator of glycogen synthase in vitro (3). In the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, glycogen is synthesized when the cells sense nutritional deprivation (7). Yeast has two genes, GSY1 and GSY2, that encode glycogen synthases, of which Gsy2p is the predominant nutritionally regulated form (8). Disruption of both glycogen synthase genes results in cells that are unable to synthesize glycogen (8). Glycogen synthase activity is reduced by covalent phosphorylation at up to three sites and, as noted, activated by glucose-6-P (3). The best characterized yeast glycogen synthase kinase is the cyclin-dependent protein kinase Pho85p, acting with the Pcl8/10p cyclins (9). We recently proposed a three-state model (10), based on the effects of Pho85p/Pcl10p phosphorylation on enzyme kinetic properties, to describe the regulation of glycogen synthase. According to this model, the lowest activity state, I, corresponds to phosphorylated glycogen synthase in the absence of glucose-6-P. The intermediate state, II, corresponds to the dephosphorylated enzyme in the absence of glucose-6-P, and the highest activity state, III, corresponds to enzyme in the presence of glucose-6-P and is independent of the phosphorylation state. In these same studies we used scanning mutagenesis, converting Arg and Lys residues to Ala, to identify several mutant forms of Gsy2p in which activation by glucose-6-P was modified (10). Two of these mutants (R579A/R581A/R582A and R586A/R588A/R591A) were mutated in a 13-residue segment that is highly conserved in glycogen synthases from different species and may be involved in a conformational transition related to the control of activity. Both mutants are completely resistant to glucose-6-P-induced increases in enzyme activity. However, although phosphorylation of R586 (R586A/R588A/R591A)1 inactivated the enzyme normally, it had little effect on R579 (R579A/R581A/R582A) (Table I). By expressing the above glycogen synthase mutants in S. cerevisiae, we sought to assess the importance of allosteric activation by glucose-6-P on glycogen accumulation in cells. In summary, we provide the first direct evidence that impairment of glucose-6-P activation has a negative impact on glycogen synthesis in living cells.
Strains and MediaStandard bacterial and yeast culture conditions and techniques for manipulation were used. The yeast strains used were DH55-72 (MAT trp1 leu2 ura3 thr4 pfk2::URA3), DH3 (MAT trp1 leu2 ura3 gsy1::LEU2 gsy2::URA3), EG328-1A (MAT trp1 leu2 ura3-52) (provided by K. Tatchell), and BP1 (MAT trp1 leu2 ura3 gsy1::LEU2 gsy2::URA3 pfk2::URA3). Rich medium contains 1% (w/v) yeast extract, 2% (w/v) Bacto-peptone, and 2% (w/v) glucose. Synthetic complete medium (SC)2 contains 0.67% (w/v) yeast nitrogen base, 2% (w/v) glucose, and complete supplement mix (Bio 101 Inc.). Synthetic selective medium contains 0.67% (w/v) yeast nitrogen base, 2% (w/v) glucose, and complete supplement mix (Bio 101 Inc.) lacking tryptophan, adenine, leucine, or uracil as appropriate. Plasmids were maintained in Escherichia coli strain DH5 .
Yeast Expression Vector ConstructionGSY2 wild-type and mutant coding sequences contained in the pET28a vector (10) were excised with NdeI and XhoI and ligated into the high copy number plasmid p424GPD (11) digested with SmaI and XhoI. All mutants were confirmed by sequencing.
Enzyme AssaysAliquots ( Glycogen synthase activity was determined by measuring the incorporation of glucose from UDP-[U-14C]glucose into glycogen by the method of Thomas et al. (13) as described by Hardy et al. (12). Activity was measured both in the absence and presence of 7.2 mM glucose-6-P. Total activity is defined as that measured in the presence of this metabolite. The -/+ glucose-6-P activity ratio is defined as the glycogen synthase activity measured in the absence divided by activity measured in the presence of 7.2 mM glucose-6-P under standard conditions. This ratio provides a kinetic index of the relative phosphorylation state of glycogen synthase, with a low value being indicative of a highly phosphorylated enzyme (reviewed in Ref. 14). Reactions were at 30 °C, typically for 1015 min. Rabbit liver glycogen (Sigma-Aldrich) was deionized by passage through a MBD-22 (Resintech, Inc.) mixed bed exchanger prior to use. Glycogen DeterminationFor analysis of glycogen accumulation in cells grown on plates, aliquots (5 µl) of yeast culture were spotted onto SC-Trp plates, and cells were grown for the indicated time before detection of glycogen by exposing plates to iodine vapor (15).
Quantitative determination of the glycogen content of yeast cells was as previously described (16). Briefly, frozen cells (as described above) were resuspended with 200 µl of 20% KOH and boiled for 1 h in a water bath with occasional shaking. Samples were cooled on ice for 2 min followed by the addition of 150 µl of 5 M HCl to neutralize samples. Glycogen was precipitated with 1 ml of ice cold 95% (v/v) ethanol and then pelleted by centrifugation at 17,500 x g at 4 °C for 10 min. The pellet was washed twice with 66% (v/v) ethanol, dried, and re-suspended in 400 µl of 50 mM sodium acetate and 5 mM CaCl2 (pH 5.0) followed by digestion with 30 µg of amyloglucosidase and 2 µg of Other MethodsWestern blot analysis for detecting Gsy2p used antiserum raised against a Gsy2p peptide (17). Enhanced chemiluminescence (Amersham Biosciences) and horseradish peroxidase-conjugated secondary antibodies (Sigma) were used for detection. Protein was measured by the method of Bradford (18) using bovine serum albumin as a standard. Densitometry was used to quantitate relative signal intensities on Western blots.
Our previous mutagenesis of Gsy2p had yielded two mutants that, from analysis of recombinant protein in vitro, were impaired in their control by glucose-6-P (Table I). The objective of the present study was to exploit these mutations to judge the importance of glucose-6-P control for glycogen accumulation in vivo. To this end, we needed yeast strains lacking endogenous glycogen synthase to avoid the possible formation of heteromeric glycogen synthase complexes containing wild-type and mutant subunits that would complicate interpretation. We utilized two strains: (i) gsy1 gsy2, in which both glycogen synthase genes are deleted; and (ii) pfk2 gsy1 gsy2, which additionally lacks the -subunit of 6-phosphofructo-1-kinase (encoded by PFK2). Both strains allow a plasmid-born GSY2 gene to be the only source of glycogen synthase. The latter strain has elevated glucose-6-P levels due to a block in glycolysis (1921) and provides a way to judge the effect of increasing the glucose-6-P concentration in vivo.
Expression of these mutants, as well as of wild-type GSY2 and control vector, in gsy1 gsy2 cells was compared with wild-type yeast in terms of glycogen synthase protein level, activity, and glycogen accumulation (Fig. 1). With the control vector, the null phenotype of the host strain was reflected in undetectable levels of glycogen synthase activity and of glycogen. Transformation with plasmid encoding the wild-type glycogen synthase GSY2 resulted in a 7-fold increase in total glycogen synthase activity as compared with the parent wild-type yeast (EG328-1A), which is consistent with an
The two mutant forms of glycogen synthase were insensitive to glucose-6-P activation when assayed in yeast extracts, as was expected from their behavior as recombinant proteins produced in E. coli, and they had -/+glucose-6-P activity ratios 1 (Fig. 1C). For R586, glucose-6-P may in fact have caused a modest inhibition of activity (Fig. 1A). In terms of expression level, the R579 protein was present at 50% of the level of plasmid-encoded wild-type Gsy2p as judged by Western analysis (Fig. 1D) with just 25% of the activity in the presence of glucose-6-P. This result is consistent with the known effect of the mutation to decrease the Vmax of the enzyme (10). Nonetheless, cells expressing this mutant accumulated almost twice as much glycogen as those with a wild-type GSY2 plasmid. A similar finding was obtained if glycogen was determined by staining colonies grown on solid media with iodine vapor (Fig. 2). These results fit with the mutated Gsy2p being completely insensitive to control by phosphorylation or glucose-6-P binding in vivo, hence leading to overaccumulation of glycogen despite the lowered glycogen synthase activity. Cells expressing the R586 mutant had a similar amount of Gsy2p protein as cells expressing wild-type enzyme, but the activity was only 1015% of wild-type measured in the presence of glucose-6-P (Fig. 1). This observation is consistent with the mutant protein still being able to be inactivated by phosphorylation. The decreased activity correlated with reduced glycogen accumulation (Figs. 1 and 2), suggesting that the insensitivity to glucose-6-P limited the ability of the cells to synthesize glycogen.
The same plasmids were expressed in the pfk2 gsy1 gsy2 strain to assess how increased glucose-6-P in vivo affected glycogen synthesis (Figs. 2 and 3). The activity of wild-type Gsy2p was 40% lower in this background, with little change in the -/+ glucose-6-P activity ratio, compared with the gsy1 gsy2 strain. Still, the glycogen was increased by 2-fold in the pfk2 gsy1 gsy2 mutant, suggesting that the elevated glucose-6-P promotes glycogen synthesis without significant changes in the glycogen synthase phosphorylation state. With wild-type Gsy2p overexpressed in the pfk2 gsy1 gsy2 strain, the total glycogen synthase activity was 4-fold that in the wild-type EG328-1A strain, with a lower activity ratio but a 23-fold increase in glycogen accumulation over the wild-type strain (Fig. 3), again essentially duplicating the phenotype of a pfk2 mutant strain. Expression of the R579 and R586 mutants resulted in similar levels of protein as the wild-type Gsy2p (Fig. 3D). The total activity of the R579 mutant was 50% that of the wild-type Gsy2p, and glycogen was only slightly elevated over that associated with expression of wild-type Gsy2p. Thus, the uncontrolled R579 mutant and the wild-type enzyme, hyperactivated by glucose-6-P, led to similar degrees of glycogen hyperaccumulation. The activity of R586, which can be inactivated by phosphorylation, was lower by 75% compared with wild-type Gsy2p and 40% compared with R579, and this translated into a 50% decrease in glycogen storage. Therefore, control of this mutant enzyme by phosphorylation was able to exert some check on glycogen accumulation in the face of elevated glucose-6-P.
The objective of this study was to assess the contribution of glucose-6-P activation of glycogen synthase to control glycogen accumulation in yeast cells. It has been proposed for years that glucose-6-P is a physiological regulator of glycogen synthase based on biochemical studies in vitro. As for all controls by ligand binding, however, actual proof of the role in vivo is difficult, and for glycogen synthase there was no such evidence. We had identified mutants of yeast Gsy2p that were insensitive to activation by glucose-6-P. One mutant (R579) was also unaffected by phosphorylation, whereas the other (R586) could still be inactivated. The mutations, which are in a highly conserved short stretch of glycogen synthase, appear to influence transitions between different activity states of glycogen synthase (10). In our three-state model, both mutants would basally be in state II but are unable to reach the most active state, III, normally achieved in the presence of glucose-6-P. R579 would be irrevocably locked into state II, whereas R586 can adopt the least active state, I, following phosphorylation. When corresponding mutations were made in rabbit muscle glycogen synthase (23), similar results were obtained, implying that the arginine residues important for activation by glucose-6-P are conserved. Anderson and Tatchell (24) also analyzed two mutations in this same region of Gsy2p and found that one of the mutant enzymes, E590K, had a significantly increased activity ratio in vivo. The R579 and R586 mutants provide a telling means for testing the effect of disabling glucose-6-P control, alone or in combination with crippled phosphorylation control, on glycogen synthesis in vivo. An important, albeit expected, outcome of the present study was the finding that when the R579 and R586 mutants were expressed in yeast lacking endogenous glycogen synthase, their activity in yeast extracts was indeed not increased by glucose-6-P, just like the recombinant proteins produced in E. coli. This result was critical to the intent of the study. Our primary conclusion is that the ability of Gsy2p to be activated by glucose-6-P is needed for normal glycogen accumulation in yeast. Additional loss of phosphorylation control, in the completely uncontrolled R579 mutant, leads to glycogen hyperaccumulation. When increased cellular glucose-6-P concentration is engineered in the pfk2 gsy1 gsy2 strain, the expression of wild-type Gsy2p correlates with elevated glycogen accumulation, basically reproducing the phenotype of pfk2 mutants as documented previously (21). Expression of the R579 mutant in this strain caused a similar level of glycogen storage, as did wild-type enzyme, and only a modest increase in glycogen as compared with its expression in cells with normal glucose-6-P levels. From these results we can conclude that the cellular glucose-6-P level has relatively little impact on glycogen accumulation mediated by R579. The R586 mutant, lacking activation by glucose-6-P but still turned off by phosphorylation, accumulates the least glycogen in either background. However, comparing the glycogen levels in the presence and absence of PFK2, there is a clear increase in the pfk2 strain when the glucose-6-P is elevated. This last point suggests that glucose-6-P can affect glycogen accumulation independently of activating glycogen synthase, and, in fact, this is consistent with a number of previous observations. Especially when glucose-6-P is elevated, as in pfk (1921) or pgi1 (25) mutants, there is the possibility that impairment of glycolysis forces glucose into glycogen by mass action via elevation of UDP-glucose levels. This may be the explanation for the increased glycogen accumulation by the R579 mutant when PFK2 is null. Glucose-6-P has also been implicated as an activator of glycogen synthase phosphatase (26) and an inhibitor of glycogen synthase kinase (21), most likely via glucose-6-P-induced changes to glycogen synthase. Arguing against a glucose-6-P-mediated change in glycogen synthase phosphorylation state is the very low -/+ glucose-6-P activity ratio of wild-type Gsy2p in both the gsy1 gsy2 and pfk2 gsy1 gsy2 strains. This indicates that the phosphorylation state of glycogen synthase has not been altered substantially by the higher levels of glucose-6-P found in the latter strain. For this mechanism to be relevant for mutants R579 and R586, it would require that the glucose-6-P-mediated changes in glycogen synthase that increase activity be distinct from the conformational changes affecting phosphorylation-dephosphorylation. Though not impossible, we consider this eventuality unlikely. Another glucose-6-P interaction is the inhibition of glycogen phosphorylase through the stimulation of phosphorylase dephosphorylation (27). Although such control may indeed occur in vivo, it is unlikely to explain the differences in behavior of cells expressing the two different mutant Gsy2p enzymes. Though not the intent, the results of this study raise an interesting point regarding the use of overexpression of metabolic enzymes in cells to measure flux control coefficients in metabolic control analysis (28, 29). In metabolic control analysis, the fractional change in flux through a pathway as a function of changing the amount of enzyme defines the flux control coefficient (28), and flux-determining enzymes would have a high value (up to 1 in a linear pathway). With an intricately regulated enzyme like glycogen synthase, however, we see that 7-fold overexpression of Gsy2p (wild-type Gsy2p in gsy1 gsy2 versus wild-type in Fig. 1) causes but a modest increase in glycogen accumulation, presumably reflecting the regulatory capacity of the cell to avoid excessive glycogen storage. A similar observation was made for muscle glycogen synthase expressed in COS cells (22). In the case of the unregulated R579 mutant, the result is a striking increase in glycogen accumulation (R579 in gsy1 gsy2 versus wild-type in Fig. 1). Which then is the more appropriate measure of the ability of the Gsy2p to control the flux to glycogen? While accepting that our analyses were poorly designed in terms of attempting metabolic control analysis, we would argue that, at least in its basic formulation, a meaningful flux control coefficient is not experimentally accessible for an enzyme that undergoes regulation, such as by phosphorylation. The importance of phosphorylation of glycogen synthase for yeast glycogen accumulation had been shown by site-directed mutagenesis (17) and by a genetic screen (24). Elimination of even a single phosphorylation site caused glycogen hyperaccumulation. The role of glucose-6-P had been inferred from biochemical studies of yeast glycogen synthase and mutants, such as those noted above, that lead to aberrant accumulation of metabolites. The results of this investigation give the first direct evidence for glucose-6-P-mediated control of glycogen synthase in vivo, demonstrating that, without this positive input, glycogen storage is impaired as compared with wild-type enzyme. Additional loss of control by phosphorylation, however, leads to an uncontrolled enzyme and hyperaccumulation of the polysaccharide.
* This work was supported in part by National Institutes of Health Grant DK42576 and the Indiana University Diabetes Research and Training Center (supported by National Institutes of Health Grant DK20542). The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
1 For brevity, R586 is used to denote a glycogen synthase mutant where arginines 586, 588, and 591 were mutated to alanine. R579 denotes a glycogen synthase mutant where arginines 579, 581, and 582 were mutated to alanine.
2 The abbreviation used is: SC, synthetic complete medium.
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