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J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 280, Issue 47, 39067-39076, November 25, 2005
Atg19p Ubiquitination and the Cytoplasm to Vacuole Trafficking Pathway in Yeast*![]() ![]() ![]() 1
From the
Received for publication, July 22, 2005 , and in revised form, September 9, 2005.
The cytoplasm to vacuole (Cvt) trafficking pathway in S. cerevisiae is a constitutive biosynthetic pathway required for the transport of two vacuolar enzymes, aminopeptidase I (Ape1p) and -mannosidase (Ams1p), to the vacuole. Ape1p and Ams1p bind to their receptor, Atg19p, in the cytosol to form a Cvt complex, which then associates with a membrane structure that envelops the complex before fusing with the vacuolar membrane. Ubiquitin-like modifications are required for both Cvt and macroautophagy, but no role for ubiquitin itself has been described. Here, we show that the deubiquitinating enzyme Ubp3p interacts with Atg19p. Moreover, Atg19p is ubiquitinated in vivo, and Atg19p-ubiquitin conjugates accumulate in cells lacking either Ubp3p or its cofactor, Bre5p. Deletion of UBP3 also leads to decreased targeting of Ape1p to the vacuole. Atg19p is ubiquitinated on two lysine residues, Lys213 and Lys216, which, when mutated, reduce the interaction of Atg19p with Ape1p. These results suggest that both ubiquitination and deubiquitination of Atg19p are required for its full function.
Biosynthetic trafficking of many hydrolases to the yeast vacuole, the equivalent of the mammalian lysosome, involves transit through the secretory pathway (reviewed in Ref. 1). A unique pathway exists for the two vacuolar enzymes aminopeptidase I (Ape1p)2 and -mannosidase (Ams1p) (reviewed in Ref. 2). These proteins are synthesized in the cytosol, assembled into a large oligomeric structure called the cytoplasm to vacuole trafficking (Cvt) complex, and enwrapped by a newly formed double membrane to form a Cvt vesicle. The outer Cvt membrane docks and fuses with the vacuole membrane to release the inner membrane vesicle into the vacuole lumen. The inner membrane is then degraded, and the contents are released (3-8). Most of the molecular machinery required for Cvt is shared by macroautophagy, a starvation-induced process that delivers bulk cytosol and organelles to the vacuole for degradation and recycling (9-12).
Atg19p is one of the components that are uniquely employed in the Cvt pathway. Atg19p binds specifically to both cargo proteins Ape1p and Ams1p, is part of the Cvt complex, and mediates the interaction of this complex with components required for formation of the double membrane that will enclose the Cvt vesicle. Atg19p is enclosed in the Cvt vesicle along with the cargo proteins, and when the vesicle fuses with the vacuolar membrane and the inner membrane is degraded, Atg19p is released into the lumen and destroyed (4, 13, 14). Most cellular proteins are ultimately degraded either by macroautophagy or the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway. In contrast to the bulk degradation of cytoplasm by macroautophagy, ubiquitin modification selectively targets protein substrates for destruction by the proteasome. Ubiquitin is activated by an ATP-dependent activating enzyme (E1) and transferred to a protein substrate by a ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme (E2), usually with the assistance of a ubiquitin ligase (E3). The conjugating enzyme attaches the C-terminal glycine of ubiquitin to a lysine residue on the substrate, forming an isopeptide bond with the free amino group of the lysine. Ubiquitin can also be conjugated to itself in this manner, forming polyubiquitin chains on substrate molecules. These chains typically serve as a degradation tag, targeting the substrate for destruction by the proteasome, a large multienzyme complex (15-18). The ubiquitination of proteins does not always lead to their degradation by the proteasome (19, 20). Monoubiquitination of membrane proteins can trigger their endocytosis and nonautophagic degradation in the vacuole (21, 22). A single lysine residue of proliferating cell nuclear antigen in yeast can be modified by a ubiquitin monomer, a polyubiquitin chain, or the ubiquitin-like modifier SUMO. None of these modifications triggers the degradation of proliferating cell nuclear antigen. Instead, monoubiquitination stimulates error-prone DNA repair, polyubiquitination triggers an error-free repair pathway, and SUMOylation recruits the helicase protein Srs2p and suppresses homologous recombination during S phase (23-27). In human cells, Fanconi's anemia protein FANCD2 is activated and targeted to DNA damage foci by monoubiquitination (28). This ubiquitin monomer can be removed by the deubiquitinating enzyme Usp1p, which is itself cell cycle-regulated and may serve to prevent FANCD2 hyperactivity (29). The cellular roles of deubiquitinating enzymes (Dubs) such as Usp1p are poorly understood. More than 80 Dubs are encoded in the human genome (30) and 17 in the yeast genome, most bearing little homology to the others beyond the residues that comprise their active sites. Physiological roles for Dubs exist at several points in the ubiquitin pathway. These roles include the generation of free ubiquitin, which is always synthesized as a protein fusion to itself or to ribosomal proteins; the removal of ubiquitin from substrate fragments after substrate degradation by the proteasome; the processing of polyubiquitin chains, either for remodeling their branched structure or for regeneration of free ubiquitin; and, as in the case of Usp1p, the reversal of ubiquitinations that serve to modify substrate activity rather than target substrates for degradation (17, 18). No direct connection between the ubiquitin system and the Cvt pathway has yet been established. Ubiquitin-like modifications are essential events in the Cvt and macroautophagic pathways (reviewed in Ref. 31). The ubiquitin-like proteins Atg8p and Atg12p are both activated in an ATP-dependent manner, transferred to E2-like conjugation enzymes, and attached to their respective targets via C-terminal glycine residues. In the case of Atg8p, which is attached to phophatidylethanolamine, there is even a Dub-like enzyme, Atg4p. Atg4p activates Atg8p after synthesis by removing a C-terminal peptide and can also remove Atg8p from its phosphatidylethanolamine substrate. However, these modifications involve neither ubiquitin itself nor components of the ubiquitin system. In this study, we show that ubiquitination of the Cvt cargo receptor Atg19p occurs in vivo and that the Ubp3p-Bre5p Dub complex is most likely responsible for removing this ubiquitin. Intriguingly, our data suggest that both attachment and removal of ubiquitin are required for full activity of Atg19p. These findings implicate ubiquitin as a functional component of the Cvt pathway.
Yeast Strain Construction and Growth MediaYeast strains used in this study are listed in TABLE ONE. To create strains BB510 (wild type) and BB511 (ubp3- ), S288C-derived MAT strain BY4742-ubp3- ::kanMX4 (EuroScarf) was crossed with S288C-derived MATa strain PSY1838 (32) to create a diploid heterozygous for trp1 and ubp3- . This diploid was sporulated to give haploids BB510 and BB511. Strain BB520 (bre5- ) was similarly derived from a cross between BY4742-bre5- ::kanMX4 (EuroScarf) and PSY1838. Strains BB532 and BB529 carry URA3-marked insertions of ATG19 (with or without an N-terminal protein A tag, respectively) at the ATG19 locus. These strains were created by amplifying the ATG19 and URA3 coding regions of plasmid pTS477 (a generous gift from Dan Klionsky (4)) by PCR using primers whose 5'-ends would direct integration to the ATG19 locus and whose 3'-ends annealed to the URA3 promoter (for the downstream primer) and either the beginning of the ATG19 open reading frame (for BB529) or the beginning of the protein A tag (for BB532). The resulting linear DNA fragment was used for integrative transformation of BB510, resulting in strains in which the inserted ATG19 (without or with a protein A tag) is under control of its own 5'-untranslated region, and its 3'-untranslated region has been replaced by pTS477 vector sequence including the URA3 marker gene. Uracil prototrophs were selected, and integration at the ATG19 locus was confirmed by PCR. Strains BB530, BB531, BB533, and BB534 were constructed in the same manner, using pTS477-derived plasmid templates carrying point mutations in ATG19 that replace Lys codons with Arg codons (see "Site-directed Mutagenesis"). For all six strains, the entire ATG19 open reading frame was amplified and sequenced after integration to confirm the absence of any unintended nonsilent mutations.
Standard growth media (YPD, SD, SC, and LB) were as described (33, 34). Yeast were routinely grown at 30 °C, and Escherichia coli were grown at 37 °C. Site-directed MutagenesisThe ATG19 2xmut and ATG19 11xmut alleles were created by site-directed mutagenesis using the QuikChangeTM protocol (Stratagene). For the 2x mutant, one primer pair was used to change ATG19 codon 216 from AAA (Lys) to AGA (Arg) in plasmid pTS477 (4). This mutation was confirmed by sequencing, and then a second pair of primers was used to change codon 213, also from AAA to AGA. The entire ATG19 open reading frame was then sequenced to confirm the absence of any unintended mutations. For the 11x mutant, codons 165, 169, 176, 182, 186, 238, 247, 248, and 251 of the 2x mutant were all changed from Lys to Arg by successive rounds of site-directed mutagenesis. Again, the entire open reading frame was sequenced, and the absence of any unintended mutations was confirmed.
Plasmid ConstructionsUBP3-containing two-hybrid bait plasmids were constructed by amplifying UBP3 by PCR and ligating the PCR products into pGBD-C1 (a generous gift of Phil James (35)) using PCR-introduced EcoRI and PstI sites. The resulting constructs encode the Gal4 DNA binding domain fused to amino acids 1-459 (Nterm), 449-912 (Cterm), or 1-912 (full length) of Ubp3. The "Cys box" and "His box" regions of the active site of Ubp3 (36) are thus included in the Cterm and full length, but not the Nterm bait plasmid. GST fusion plasmid pGEX-UBP3-N was constructed by amplifying the UBP3 portion of pGBD-UBP3-Nterm by PCR and ligating the PCR product into pGEX-6P-1 (Amersham Biosciences) using PCR-introduced EcoRI and XhoI sites. The resulting plasmid encodes a fusion of GST to amino acids 1-459 of Ubp3 under control of the isopropyl 1-thio- To create a centromeric plasmid encoding C-terminally tagged Atg19 under its own promoter, the triple HA epitope was PCR-amplified from plasmid GTEPI (a generous gift of Rita Miller (37)) using primers designed to add an XbaI site to the N-terminal end of the epitope and a stop codon followed by a SacII site to the C-terminal end. This product was ligated to XbaI/SacII-digested pRS316 (38) to create p316-Cfus-HA. ATG19 sequence, including 1192 bp of upstream flank and the entire open reading frame without the stop codon, was PCR-amplified from strains BB529, BB530, and BB531 (for WT, 2x mutant, and 11x mutant sequence; see "Yeast Strain Construction") with primers designed to introduce an XhoI site at position -1192 and an XbaI site at the end of the open reading frame. These products were ligated to XhoI/XbaI-digested p316-Cfus-HA to create p316-ATG19-WT-HA, p316-ATG19-2x-HA, and p316-ATG19-11x-HA. The absence of nonsilent mutations was confirmed by DNA sequencing. HIS3-marked plasmids encoding ubiquitin driven by the CUP1 promoter (with or without a Myc epitope tag) were created by subcloning the CUP1 promoter, ubiquitin open reading frame, and CYC1 terminator from YEp105 or YEp96 (generous gifts of Mark Hochstrasser (39)) as a BamHI/ClaI fragment into pRS413 (38). The new plasmids are p413-Ub and p413-MycUb. Two-hybrid ScreenTwo-hybrid strain PJ69-4a (35) was transformed with each of the three UBP3 bait plasmids and then with yeast two-hybrid libraries Y2HL-C1, Y2HL-C2, and Y2HL-C3, provided by Phil James (35). Transformations were performed using standard methods (40). More than 1 x 106 transformants/library were obtained with the C-terminal and full-length bait plasmids, and more than 3 x 106 transformants/library were obtained for the N-terminal bait plasmid, giving >95 and >99.9% confidence of full genomic coverage, respectively. Transformation mixtures were spread on SC plates lacking Trp, Leu, and His and allowed to incubate for 18-21 days before being replica-plated to SC plates lacking Trp, Leu, and Ade and incubated approximately 1 more week. Colonies were then picked from these plates and streaked to fresh SC plates lacking Trp, Leu, and Ade. Candidates able to form colonies in these fresh streaks were scored as Ade+. These candidates were then tested for dependence of adenine and histidine prototrophy on retention of the bait plasmid. Library plasmids were rescued from candidates showing bait-dependent adenine and histidine prototrophy, retransformed into fresh bait-carrying PJ69-4a as a final confirmation, and sequenced.
GST Pull-down AssayFor induction of GST-Ubp3 or GST, a single colony of BL21 cells carrying pGEX-UBP3-N or pGEX-6P-1 was used to inoculate 100 ml of LB + 100 µg/ml ampicillin and grown at 37 °C to an A600 of
IgG Affinity Purifications/Anti-HA ImmunoprecipitationsFor the experiment in Fig. 2B, overnight cultures were diluted to an A600 of For the experiment in Fig. 4C, wild-type BB510 cells were transformed with pTS477 (CUP1-ProtA-ATG19 (4)) and YEp96, YEp105 (encoding wild-type ubiquitin without or with a Myc epitope tag, respectively), or YEp110 or YEp111 (encoding K48R mutant ubiquitin without or with a Myc tag; generous gifts of Mark Hochstrasser) (41). Cells were grown to early log phase in selective medium, induced with 100 µM CuSO4 for 3.5 h, and harvested in midlog phase. Cells were lysed, and protein A-Atg19 was isolated as described above. Because expression of K48R mutant ubiquitin was consistently less than that of wild-type ubiquitin under these conditions, loadings were normalized to total Myc-ubiquitin staining of cell lysates. For the final gel shown, 3.75 A600 units of cells were loaded per lane for wild-type ubiquitin samples, and 15 A600 units were loaded for the K48R samples. For the experiments shown in Fig. 5, A and D, cells were grown in selective medium with induction by 100 µM CuSO4 (Fig. 5, A (left) and D) or without it (Fig. 5A (right)). Cells were lysed, and protein A-Atg19 was isolated as described above. Two A600 units of cells were used per lane in Fig. 5A (left), 30 A600 units were used in Fig. 5A (right), and 5-7.5 A600 units were used in Fig. 5D. For Fig. 5D, loadings were first normalized to protein A-Atg19 staining, and the blot was probed with Ape1p antibody to detect cargo interaction.
For the experiments shown in Fig. 5B, atg19-
Gel Electrophoresis and Mass SpectrometryStrain BB520 (bre5-
All visibly stained bands were excised and subjected to in-gel digestion (see, on the World Wide Web, donatello.ucsf.edu/ingel.html) (42) with trypsin (porcine, side-chain protected; Promega). The digests were analyzed by capillary HPLC-tandem mass spectrometry using a C18 PepMap 75 µm x 150-mm column on an Eksigent nano-HPLC pump (Eksigent, Livermore, CA) linked with a FAMOS autosampler (LC Packings, San Francisco, CA). Solvent A was 0.1% formic acid in water, and B was 0.1% formic acid in acetonitrile, and a flow rate of Gel bands with molecular mass corresponding to protein A-Atg19p with zero, one, two, three, and four ubiquitin molecules attached all yielded Atg19p peptide sequence, with 17-24 peptides per gel band, representing 42-55% coverage of the protein. Two of these bands (representing one and four ubiquitin modifications, respectively) yielded ubiquitinated Atg19p peptides, and all four of the larger bands yielded peptides of ubiquitin itself. In Vivo Labeling and ImmunoprecipitationYeast cultures were grown to A600 of 0.5 in SD supplemented with the required amino acids. Cells (2 A600 units/time point) were harvested by centrifugation at 1800 x g and resuspended in 450 µl of SD medium with amino acids. A 10-min pulse with 20 mCi of [35S]cysteine/methionine per time point was followed by the addition of 4 ml of chase solution (5 mM methionine and 1 mM cysteine final concentration in YPD). Samples (1 ml) were taken at the indicated time points. The samples were precipitated with 10% trichloroacetic acid and washed twice with cold acetone, dried, and resuspended in 100 µl of cracking buffer (50 mM Tris, pH 6.8, 1% SDS, 6 M urea, 1 mM EDTA) plus an equal volume of acid-washed glass beads. Following a 5-min vortex, samples were diluted 10-fold in immunoprecipitation dilution buffer (50 mM Tris, pH 7.5, 150 mM NaCl, 0.5% Tween 20, 5 mM EDTA, and 100 mg/ml bovine serum albumin) and centrifuged for 5 min at 13,000 x g. The supernatant was precipitated overnight with anti-Ape1p antibody (0.5 µl/2 A600 units of cells) followed by a 2-h incubation with protein A-conjugated Sepharose (2% (v/v) final). Immune complexes were then washed and processed for SDS-PAGE. Dried gels were exposed to bio-imager plates and read on a Fuji BAS bio-imager.
Atg19p Interacts Genetically and Biochemically with Ubp3pTo identify proteins that interact with Ubp3p, we used three different Ubp3p bait constructs to screen a set of yeast two-hybrid libraries (35). Full-length ATG19 was isolated three times in these screens, once by interaction with the N-terminal half of Ubp3p (amino acids 1-459) and twice with the full-length bait construct. Interestingly, in none of the three plasmids was the ATG19 open reading frame fused to the GAL4 gene fragment, suggesting that Atg19p has a cryptic transcriptional activation domain. Upon retesting, all three ATG19 plasmids were positive for interaction with both the N-terminal and full-length bait constructs (e.g. Fig. 1A). Specific interaction between the N-terminal half of Ubp3p and Atg19p was confirmed biochemically. A bacterially expressed fusion protein between GST and the N-terminal 459 amino acids of Ubp3p was bound to glutathione beads and then exposed to a bacterial lysate containing epitope-tagged Atg19p. Atg19p bound specifically to beads carrying GST-Ubp3p (Fig. 1B). In addition to confirming the interaction between Ubp3p and Atg19p, this experiment demonstrates that the interaction requires neither ubiquitin itself nor any other component of the ubiquitin system, which would not be present in the E. coli extracts.
Atg19p Is Ubiquitinated in VivoInteraction of a deubiquitinating enzyme with Atg19p was surprising, because ubiquitin had not been implicated in the Cvt pathway. One explanation for the interaction would be that Atg19p is ubiquitinated in vivo and that Ubp3p serves to remove this ubiquitin. If so, the cofactor of Ubp3p, Bre5p, which is required for deubiquitination by Ubp3p of some substrates (43, 44), might also be involved. We tested the role of Ubp3p and Bre5p in the deubiquitination of Atg19 by overexpressing protein A-tagged Atg19p in wild-type, ubp3-
Protein A-Atg19p was isolated by affinity for IgG-conjugated agarose beads, and the bead-bound proteins were probed by anti-Myc immunoblot. The results show that Atg19p can in fact be ubiquitinated in vivo (Fig. 2B). Moreover, ubiquitin conjugates of Atg19p were consistently more abundant in ubp3-
Ape1p Maturation Is Delayed in Cells Lacking Ubp3pOne interpretation of the results described above is that the expression of nonnative Atg19p, for example as a two-hybrid or protein A fusion, leads to its ubiquitination. We therefore set out to test whether ubiquitination of Atg19p is physiologically relevant.
Atg19p is required for trafficking of Ape1p and Ams1p to the vacuole via the Cvt pathway. Since Ape1p is activated by proteolytic cleavage upon its release into the vacuole lumen, its trafficking, and therefore the function of Atg19, can be monitored by pulse-chase analysis. We asked whether Ape1p maturation was affected by deletion of UBP3. Wild-type and ubp3- Mutation of Atg19p Ubiquitination Sites Impairs Cargo Interaction and Delays Ape1p ProcessingDeletion of UBP3 is likely to be pleiotropic, since Ubp3p is known to be involved in a variety of cellular processes (43, 45, 46). Therefore, to test the role of Atg19p ubiquitination more directly, we employed mass spectrometric peptide sequencing to identify the ubiquitin acceptor sites in Atg19p. Protein A-Atg19p-ubiquitin conjugates and their associated proteins were isolated by affinity for IgG-conjugated agarose, separated by SDS-PAGE, digested with trypsin, and sequenced. In addition to protein A, Atg19p, and ubiquitin, the peptide sequences identified included tryptic fragments of Ams1p, Atg11p, and Ape1p. Ams1p and Ape1p are cargo proteins of the Cvt pathway and, together with Atg19, form the Cvt complex. Atg11p/Cvt9p associates with the complex and facilitates its interaction with the preautophagosomal structure (4). Identification of Ams1p, Ape1p, and Atg11p in the IgG-bound fraction in this experiment demonstrates that the protein A-Atg19p reporter was assembled into native Cvt complexes in vivo, consistent with the ability of this construct to complement an atg19 deletion (Fig. 2A). Ubiquitinated peptides were identified in the mass spectrometric analysis by the presence of the diglycine residue that remains attached to a conjugated lysine after tryptic digestion (47). Two ubiquitinated peptides were identified from Atg19p, SELVNFFTELK213(GG)TVK and TVK216(GG)QLEDVFQR, with Lys213 and Lys216 as ubiquitin acceptor sites, respectively (Fig. 4, A and B). No double modified peptides with both Lys213 and Lys216 ubiquitinated were observed, although their presence cannot be ruled out. No Atg19p residues other than Lys213 and Lys216 were found to be ubiquitinated, although their existence also cannot be ruled out. Reversal of ubiquitination may have occurred during protein isolation, and the 42-55% peptide coverage of the protein per band means that additional ubiquitination sites may have been missed. Ubiquitin itself also showed ubiquitination, at Lys48 (data not shown), indicating that the ubiquitin ladder we observed in Atg19p pull-downs (Fig. 2, B and C) represents polyubiquitin chains attached to Atg19p. We confirmed that these polyubiquitin chains are linked at Lys48 of ubiquitin by overexpressing a Myc-tagged version of ubiquitin with a lysine to arginine substitution at position 48. In the presence of this construct, monoubiquitinated Atg19p accumulated, and levels of polyubiquitinated Atg19p decreased (Fig. 4C). The remaining polyubiquitinated bands can be accounted for by the continued presence of endogenous, unlabeled ubiquitin in these strains. To block ubiquitination of Atg19p at the sites we identified, we mutated both Lys213 and Lys216 to arginine by site-directed mutagenesis. Surprisingly, IgG-agarose isolation of this "2x" mutant construct in the presence of Myc-ubiquitin showed no effect of the mutations on Atg19p ubiquitination (Fig. 5A, left). Because ubiquitination can be promiscuous, occurring at flanking lysine residues when the primary sites are blocked by mutation (48-50), we systematically changed every lysine codon within 75 codons of the identified ubiquitination sites to arginine, creating an "11x" mutant in which Lys213, Lys216, and nine additional flanking lysine residues are altered, and a stretch of over 150 amino acids centered on Lys213 and Lys216 is lysine-free. This construct was still ubiquitinated (Fig. 5A, right). The persistence of ubiquitination is not a by-product of either the protein A tag or of overexpression, because an HA-tagged Atg19p expressed from its own promoter on a centromeric plasmid was still ubiquitinated, whether the ATG19 sequence was wild-type, 2x, or 11x (Fig. 5B). In these strains, the HA-tagged Atg19p was the only copy, and its expression was somewhat lower than endogenous Atg19p in a wild-type strain (data not shown).
Although not unprecedented (48-50), the resistance of Atg19p ubiquitination to mutation was surprising. The ubiquitin conjugation machinery must be able to use one or more of the remaining 17 lysine residues in the 11x mutant as ubiquitin attachment sites. It is even possible that Lys213 and Lys216 are preferred ubiquitin attachment sites only in the context of Atg19p overexpression and that other sites normally predominate. We speculated that if Lys213 and Lys216 are functionally important ubiquitin attachment sites, their mutation to arginine, although not causing a detectable change in the level of Atg19p ubiquitination, might still impair Atg19p function. This speculation was correct. As detected by steady-state Western blot, maturation of Ape1p was slightly delayed in the 2x mutant and dramatically delayed in the 11x mutant (Fig. 5C). This defect is probably a result of impaired interaction with Ape1p, since IgG-agarose isolation of protein A-Atg19p resulted in dramatically less co-purification of Ape1p in the 2x mutant than in wild-type, a defect that was even stronger in the 11x mutant (Fig. 5D). A previous study by Shintani et al. (4) mapped the Ape1p binding domain of Atg19p to residues 153-191 and demonstrated that an Atg19p truncated at residue 191 retains Ape1p binding activity. Defective Ape1 binding by the Lys213, Lys216 double mutant thus suggests the possibility that ubiquitination of these residues regulates Ape1p binding by full-length Atg19p.
We have shown that the cargo receptor of the Cvt trafficking pathway in yeast, Atg19p, is both ubiquitinated and deubiquitinated in vivo, and our data suggest that both modifications are required for fully efficient Ape1p processing. Two models are consistent with these findings. First, ubiquitin could serve as a degradation signal to either down-regulate Cvt trafficking or remove excess Atg19p by targeting it to the proteasome. Alternatively, ubiquitination and deubiquitination of Atg19p could play a structural or mechanistic role in the normal progression of the Cvt pathway. Does Ubiquitination of Atg19p Serve as a Signal for Degradation by the Proteasome?Ubiquitination of Atg19p occurs on two lysine residues, Lys213 and Lys216. No doubly-modified peptides were isolated, suggesting that modification of these residues is mutually exclusive. Lys48-based polyubiquitin chains were present. These results indicate that the series of bands we observed in Atg19p pull-down experiments represents one, two, three, four, or more ubiquitin molecules attached to a single lysine residue of Atg19p and conjugated to each other via Lys48 of ubiquitin. Lys48-based polyubiquitin chains typically constitute a degradation signal, targeting a substrate to the proteasome for proteolysis (51, 52). Two pieces of evidence suggest that this is not the case for Atg19p. First, Atg19p degradation is known to occur in the vacuole and to be dependent on the Cvt/macroautophagy pathways (4, 13). Second, mutation of the relevant lysine residues to arginine, which retains the positive charge of lysine but is unable to serve as a ubiquitin attachment site, decreases the interaction of Atg19p with Ape1p and thus, at least in principle, the ability of Atg19p to function in the Cvt pathway. It is possible that the mutations have unintended effects not related to ubiquitination, but Lys213 and Lys216 are not in a region of Atg19p known to be involved in any of its protein-protein interactions (4), and the mutations to arginine are conservative substitutions.
There is precedent for a Lys48-linked polyubiquitin tag the activity of a protein without targeting it for degradation. some conditions, transcriptional activator Met4p in yeast is inactivated, but not destabilized, by Lys48-linked polyubiquitination (53, 54). The mechanism by which ubiquitinated Met4p is protected from proteasomal degradation remains unclear, but the data presented here suggest that Atg19p may provide a second example for study.
The possibility remains that a small fraction of Atg19p, for example a cytosolic pool not associated with cargo proteins, could be destroyed by the proteasome and that this is the purpose of Atg19p polyubiquitination. To be consistent with our finding that mutation of the ubiquitin acceptor sites of Atg19p impairs interaction with Ape1p, this model would require that excess Atg19p has the effect of reducing the efficiency of the Cvt pathway, and its normal clearance by the proteasome is beneficial. However, we found that overexpression of protein A-tagged Atg19p does not impair Ape1p maturation (Fig. 2A). Clarification of whether ubiquitinated Atg19p is degraded by the proteasome will require further study, but an alternative model exists that is consistent with the data so far. Ubiquitination of Atg19p May Be a Functional Step in the Cvt PathwayUbiquitin modification of Atg19p and its subsequent deubiquitination may be required for normal progression along the Cvt pathway. For example, attachment of ubiquitin may facilitate the interaction of Atg19p with cargo proteins in the assembling Cvt complex, as is suggested by the impaired interaction of the Lys to Arg Atg19p mutants with cargo protein Ape1p (Fig. 5D). Subsequent deubiquitination may in turn facilitate a later step in the pathway, such as association with the preautophagosomal structure. In this case, impairment of either ubiquitination or deubiquitination of Atg19p would be expected to decrease Cvt pathway function, as we observed. Reversible ubiquitination is an important regulatory mechanism for proteins such as histone H2B, proliferating cell nuclear antigen, and Fancomi's anemia protein FANCD2 (55, 56). A New Role for the Ubp3p-Bre5p Dub ComplexSome of the 17 Dubs encoded in the yeast genome have been implicated in specific roles. For example, Doa4p removes ubiquitin from substrate fragments after degradation and from membrane proteins whose ubiquitination targets them for endocytosis and degradation in the vacuole. Deletion of DOA4 leads to a depletion of free ubiquitin pools and various pleiotropic effects (57-61). Ubp14p disassembles free polyubiquitin chains (62). Ubp8p, in association with histone acetylase complexes SAGA and SLIK, deubiquitinates histone H2B (63, 64). Ubp6p associates with the proteasome, where it removes ubiquitin from substrates before their degradation, allowing ubiquitin to be recycled (65, 66). Ubp1p is thought to target an as yet unidentified component of the endocytic pathway, since overexpression of a soluble Ubp1p isoform stabilizes at least two cargo proteins of this pathway, Ste6p and Ste2p (67).
A number of previous studies have focused on Ubp3p and its cofactor Bre5p. Ubp3p interacts physically with the chromatin silencing protein Sir4p, and ubp3- The work presented here adds a new role for the Ubp3p-Bre5p complex, the removal of a polyubiquitin modification from Atg19p. This activity appears to be unrelated to proteasomal degradation, instead serving to modify the activity or localization of Atg19p in the Cvt pathway.
* This work was supported by a Merck/AAAS and Perkins Foundation grant (to A. G. S.), a Hobart and William Smith Colleges faculty research grant (to B. K. B.), National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Center for Research Resources Grants RR 01614 and RR 12961 (to A. L. B.) Israel Science Foundation Grant 496/03 (to H. A.), and National Science Foundation Grant MCB 0110972 and NIH Grant GM067838 (to D. S. G.). 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 To whom correspondence should be addressed: Dept. of Biology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627. Tel.: 585-275-3890; Fax: 585-275-2070; E-mail: dasg{at}mail.rochester.edu.
2 The abbreviations used are: Ape1p, aminopeptidase I; Ams1p,
We thank Dan Klionsky, Mark Hochstrasser, Rita Miller, and Phil James for plasmids, reagents, and advice, and Elaine Sia and Adam Mason for critical reading of the manuscript. Molecular Biology students at Hobart and William Smith Colleges provided technical assistance and plasmid construction.
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