![]()
|
|
||||||||
J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 281, Issue 6, 3276-3282, February 10, 2006
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
From the Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique, and the CNRS UPR 9073, Université Paris 7 - Denis Diderot, 75005 Paris
Received for publication, October 28, 2005 , and in revised form, November 29, 2005.
| ABSTRACT |
|---|
|
|
|---|
mutants, the maintenance of mRNA degradation capacity is likely to be important for the accurate and rapid adaptation of gene expression to salt stress. | INTRODUCTION |
|---|
|
|
|---|
mutant strains revealed both up- and down-regulation of different sets of proteins involved in several metabolic pathways (9). Such alterations in gene expression would certainly be problematic under conditions of environmental stress, when cells are required to establish a particular gene expression program for adaptation. It has been demonstrated that inhibition of 5'3'-exoribonuclease activity by the metabolite, 3'-phosphoadenosine 5'-phosphate (pAp),3 occurs in the presence of toxic ions such as sodium and lithium (10) (Fig. 1). pAp is produced during the assimilation of sulfate, an essential process in all living organisms. Sulfate assimilation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae is initiated by the production of adenosine 5'-phosphosulfate (ApS) from ATP and sulfate (11). Phosphorylation of ApS yields 3'-phosphoadenosine 5'-phosphosulfate (pApS), which is then reduced to sulfite and pAp. Sulfite is reduced further to sulfide, which is incorporated into homocysteine, which in turn can be metabolized to methionine (12) (Fig. 1). The product of the HAL2/MET22 gene is required for the dephosphorylation of pAp to AMP, but the presence of sodium or lithium in the growth medium inhibits the enzymatic activity of Hal2p and causes accumulation of pAp (13) (Fig. 1). Part of the salt toxicity is known to be due to the accumulation of pAp since sodium or lithium toxicity in cells can be efficiently relieved by overexpression of Hal2p, which limits pAp accumulation (10, 14, 15). Similarly, the presence of extracellular methionine, which limits sulfate assimilation and consequently pAp accumulation, is known to increase salt tolerance (10, 16).
Many metabolic activities are sensitive to salt inhibition, but cells counter the accumulation of toxic ions in the cytoplasm by homeostatic mechanisms, which maintain intracellular ion concentrations and are essential for living cells (17, 18). For instance, many strains of the yeast S. cerevisiae contain a major sodium and lithium extrusion ATPase encoded by the ENA14/PMR2 gene cluster (19, 20) (Fig. 1). Extrusion of toxic ions, such as sodium or lithium (lithium being a sodium analog with higher toxicity), occurs efficiently in cells and affords salt tolerance, although it does not efficiently prevent pAp accumulation under high salt conditions.
Degradation of the body of mRNAs has already been extensively studied in terms of the effect of mutations in trans-acting factors or cis-acting elements on mRNA stability (21), but only a few investigations into how external stimuli regulate global mRNA turnover have been pursued in S. cerevisiae. One example of specific effects comes from studies of the target of rapamycin pathway, which senses external nutrient availability and mediates changes in gene expression upon diauxic shift (22) by controlling the turnover of specific mRNAs (23). The best-studied mRNAs in terms of a context-specific regulation of RNA stability are mammalian transcripts containing AU-rich elements, also observed in a few yeast transcripts (24). We are only just beginning to learn how many RNA-binding proteins associated with these AU-rich elements modulate mRNA decay in response to environmental stimuli (1, 25).
Gcn4p is a transcriptional activator of hundreds of genes in response to many different stress or starvation conditions (26, 27). Adaptation to changes in the extracellular environment is a critical event for cell survival, and the activation of GCN4 expression in the presence of NaCl may contribute to the well known ability of yeast to adapt to extreme perturbations in culture conditions. The study we describe here has provided the first evidence that Gcn4p mediates the regulation of mRNA degradation in response to external stimuli. We demonstrated that cells take advantage of the derepression of GCN4 translation in the presence of sodium to maintain the degradation activity of 5'3'-exonucleases. We have shown that Gcn4p participates directly in the activation of HAL2 expression, thus permitting the limitation of pAp accumulation. In cells deficient in the 3'5'-mRNA decay pathway, we have shown that cells unable to maintain Gcn4p-dependent 5'3'-mRNA degradation activity display severe growth defects in the presence of salt.
|
| EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES |
|---|
|
|
|---|
PlasmidsIn this study, we used plasmid p16 (URA3 CEN) and plasmid p238, which overproduces Gcn4p constitutively (GCN4c URA3 CEN) (30). Plasmids p180 and p227 contain the GCN4-lacZ fusion with or without the four upstream open reading frames, respectively, and have been described previously (31, 32). These plasmids were generous gifts from A. Hinnebusch. Yeast transformations were performed by the LiAc procedure (28).
Preparation of Yeast Nucleotide Extracts and HPLC AnalysisYeast nucleotide extracts and HPLC analysis were done as described previously with minor modifications (13). Yeast cells were grown to an absorbance of 0.2 at 600 nm and then treated with LiCl or NaCl at the indicated concentrations. At the indicated times, samples corresponding to 20 OD600 nm (2.108 cells) were harvested by filtration through Millipore filters (0.45 µm) and extracted with 1 ml of 2 N perchloric acid at 0 °C for 15 min. Extracts were clarified by centrifugation at 12,000 rpm for 3 min. 0.8 ml of supernatant were neutralized with 0.36 ml of 2 N KOH and 4 M H2PO4 and centrifuged as above. Supernatants were filtered through Millipore HV filters (0.45 µm) and stored at 80 °C. 100 µl of each extract were analyzed by HPLC (Waters). Samples were applied to a reversed phase C18 column (Lichrosphere 100, 4 x 250 mm, 5-µm particle size, Merck), eluted, and detected as described (33). Nucleotide peaks were identified by co-injection with standards (AMP, ADP, ATP, and pAp from Sigma).
Northern Blot AnalysisTotal RNA was extracted as described (34) from 10 ml of cell cultures grown at 30 °C to mid-log phase and after NaCl treatment when indicated. 20 µg of RNA were loaded onto a 1.25% agarose-formaldehyde gel. The size-fractionated RNA was blotted onto a Hybond-N membrane (Amersham Biosciences), and hybridization was performed as recommended by the supplier. Probes against scR1 RNAs were generated by the random priming method, using PCR products as templates. Amplification of genomic scR1 was performed using oligonucleotides obc13 (5'-GGTGGGATGGGATACGTTG) and obc14 (5'-CGGCCACAATGTGCGAG). The probe AJO130, specific for ITS1 (35), was end-labeled by polynucleotide kinase and [
-32P]ATP.
Western Blot AnalysisWhole cell protein extracts were prepared from 20 ml of cell cultures grown at 30 °C to mid-log phase and after NaCl treatment for an additional 2 h as indicated. Western blot experiments were performed using rabbit anti-Hal2p (14). 40 mg of total proteins were loaded and separated by electrophoresis on 12% acrylamide gels as described (36). Transfer to nitrocellulose membranes and Western blotting with antibody (diluted 5000x) were performed as described (37) using a peroxidase-coupled secondary antibody (diluted 5000x), SuperSignal chemiluminescent substrate (Pierce), and Kodak X-Omat AR films.
-Galactosidase AssaysCells were grown at 30 °C to mid-log phase and treated with 3-AT, NaCl, LiCl, or KCl treatment for an additional 2 h as indicated. Whole-cell extracts were prepared as described elsewhere (38), except that Z buffer without
-mercaptoethanol was used as the extraction buffer. Protein concentration was determined by the Bio-Rad assay, and
-galactosidase activity was measured as described (39).
-Galactosidase units are expressed in nanomoles of 2-nitrophenyl-
-d-galactopyranoside hydrolyzed per minute per nanogram of protein.
| RESULTS |
|---|
|
|
|---|
is a prerequisite for the induction of GCN4 translation in response to histidine starvation or NaCl stress, we used a GCN4-lacZ translational fusion containing all four upstream open reading frames in cells expressing wild type or a mutant form of GCN2 to measure and compare GCN4 translation in the presence and absence of LiCl (Table 1, p180 plasmid). As controls for GCN4 derepression, Gcn4-lacZ enzyme activity was also measured upon histidine starvation, mimicked by the addition of 3-AT, and in the presence of sodium (Table 1, 0.2 M NaCl or 0.4 M NaCl). Although NaCl and 3-AT caused a significant increase in
-galactosidase levels, as expected (32, 41), LiCl had a much smaller effect (Table 1). All increases were essentially abolished in cells deficient for Gcn2p activity (gcn2-1 mutant). As shown previously, the activation by NaCl was not observed in the presence of KCl (Table 1, 0.5 M KCl), suggesting that this effect is not due to a general osmotic stress response (41). We also analyzed the expression of a mutant GCN4-lacZ fusion under the same conditions. In this fusion, the four upstream open reading frames are non-functional, thus alleviating translational control (Table 1, p227 plasmid). With this construct, Gcn4-lacZ enzyme activity was elevated in all conditions and independent of Gcn2p. Thus, exposure of cells to LiCl causes only a weak translational activation of GCN4, slightly greater than that observed in the presence of KCl but significantly lower than the induction by histidine starvation or sodium stress. This implies that, although lithium has been shown to be a more potent inhibitor of Hal2p activity, sodium is more efficient at activating GCN4 expression.
|
0.4 M NaCl). The effect of the gcn4
mutation was only visible in the presence of salt since no pAp accumulated in this mutant in the absence of NaCl (gcn4
, SD). To confirm that GCN4 expression inhibits the accumulation of pAp, we compared pAp levels in LiCl-treated wild type cells, in which pAp levels are high, with cells bearing a GCN4c constitutive allele that overproduces Gcn4p (GCN4c, 0.2 M LiCl). As predicted, a significant decrease in pAp levels occurred under these conditions. Similarly, treatment of cells with both LiCl and 3-AT, which causes histidine starvation and strong derepression of GCN4 expression, also led to a decrease in pAp levels, in this case to near baseline levels (WT, 0.2 M LiCl +3AT).
|
strains by Northern blot analysis (Fig. 3). Xrn1p activity participates in the degradation of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS1), a product of rRNA processing (42). Strains defective for Xrn1p exonuclease activity show increased levels of ITS1 RNA due to its stabilization (Fig. 3, lanes 3 and 4), independently of the presence of NaCl (compare with lanes 7 and 8). Within the first hour of NaCl addition, cells deficient for Gcn4p accumulated higher levels of ITS1 RNAs than wild type cells (Fig. 3, compare lanes 5 and 6 and lanes 2 and 6). These results are in perfect correlation with the accumulation of pAp, the inhibitor of Xrn1p, observed in the gcn4
mutant strain in the presence of NaCl (Fig. 2).
|
cells in the presence of NaCl, would affect cell growth since xrn1
mutant cells have a slow growth phenotype (6). This slow growth phenotype is independent of GCN4 expression (Fig. 4A, see the similar growth rate of xrn1
or xrn1
gcn4
strains). In the presence of salt, however, both the xrn1
and the xrn1
gcn4
strains show similar growth rates to the wild type strain, suggesting that some adaptation has occurred, possibly through increased activity of the alternative 3'5' degradation pathway (43). Inactivation of both the 5'3' and the 3'5' pathways has been shown to be lethal in yeast (44). We thus decided to measure the effect of salt on growth of a gcn4
mutant in the absence of cytoplasmic 3'5' degradation by also removing Ski2p. Ski2p is a putative RNA helicase necessary for cytoplasmic 3'5'-mRNA degradation (45). We predicted that in the absence of Ski2p, the accumulation of pAp in the presence of salt in cells also lacking Gcn4p would show a slow growth phenotype due to inhibition of Xrn1p. Indeed, a significant decrease in growth rate was observed in the ski2
gcn4
strain grown in the presence of salt when compared with the control strains ski2
or gcn4
, whereas these three strains grew similarly in the absence of salt (Fig. 4). On the other hand, the xrn1
gcn4
strain (in which only the cytoplasmic 3'5'-mRNA degradation pathway is active), the wild type strain, and the xrn1
and gcn4
strains showed similar growth rates in the presence of sodium (Fig. 4B), in agreement with the hypothesis that the 3'5' degradation pathway is not inhibited by the accumulation of pAp (43).
Inhibition of HAL2 Expression, and Not an Imbalance in Ion Homeostasis, Is Responsible for pAp Accumulation in NaCl-treated gcn4
CellsIn the absence of extracellular methionine, the expression of the HAL2 gene, which contains a specific cis-acting element responding to methionine limitation upstream of its promoter sequence, is expected to be maximal (14). Under this condition, sulfate assimilation is efficiently triggered, Hal2p activity is sufficient to convert all pAp to AMP (11), and thus only traces of pAp are detectable (Fig. 2, WT in SD medium). We first asked whether the effect of Gcn4p on pAp accumulation was related to the fact that Gcn4p is an activator of HAL1 expression (46). Hal1p plays an important role in maintaining Na+/K+ ion homeostasis and was shown to confer salt tolerance when overexpressed in yeast cells, possibly by activating Ena1p, a sodium/lithium extrusion ATPase (Fig. 1) (47). It was therefore possible that the accumulation of pAp in gcn4
mutants in the presence of NaCl was due to higher internal sodium concentrations in a gcn4
genetic background, resulting in greater inhibition of Hal2p enzymatic activity. We thus performed HPLC analysis of nucleotide extracts from control and NaCl-treated wild type and hal1
cells. We used 0.6 M NaCl for this experiment to allow significant accumulation of pAp in wild type cells, allowing a better comparison with hal1
cells (Fig. 5A). Incubation of the hal1
mutant in 0.6 M NaCl for 4 h did not result in a significant increase in the intracellular levels of pAp when compared with cells deficient for GCN4 (Fig. 5A, compare WT and hal1
to gcn4
in 0.6 M NaCl). Therefore, the absence of HAL1 expression and, a fortiori, the defect in its Gcn4p-dependent activation does not account for the accumulation of pAp in gcn4
cells grown in the presence of sodium.
|
mutant context. A dimer of Gcn4p binds to the consensus sequence 5'-TGACTC-3' located in the upstream control regions of many amino acid biosynthetic genes (48, 49) and activates their transcription under conditions of amino acid starvation. This consensus sequence is also found within the HAL2 promoter (Fig. 5B, GCRE). We thus modified this site in the chromosomal HAL2 gene, creating a mutant called HAL2GCRE
. This mutation resulted in a strong accumulation of pAp in cells grown in the presence of sodium when compared with those grown without, similar to the accumulation of pAp in HAL2 cells with the gcn4
mutation in trans (Fig. 5A, compare HAL2GCRE
with or without NaCl and compare HAL2GCRE
with gcn4
in 0.6 M NaCl). This suggested that the Gcn4p-dependent limitation of pAp accumulation in the presence of salt was due to a direct effect of Gcn4p on HAL2 expression.
|
, or HAL2GCRE
cells by immunoblot analysis in the presence and absence of salt. Cells deficient for Gcn4p or lacking the Gcn4p-binding site upstream of HAL2 showed decreased levels of Hal2p both in the presence and in the absence of 0.6 M NaCl (Fig. 6, A and B, compare WT with gcn4
or HAL2GCRE
). An unidentified faster-migrating species that cross-reacts with the Hal2p antibody, and whose expression level varies under the conditions studied, was observed on the immunoblot. This protein is not a degradation product of Hal2p since it is also detectable in the hal2
, strain and its variation is not due to loading variations, as shown by the Coomassie Blue-stained gel underneath each blot. Thus, Gcn4p contributes strongly to basal levels of Hal2p expression. The inhibition of the low levels of Hal2p in the gcn4
mutant by salt is probably sufficient to account for accumulation of pAp under these conditions (Fig. 5A). Like the gcn4
mutation (Fig. 3), the GCRE
mutation upstream of HAL2 resulted in greater stabilization of the Xrn1p-sensitive ITS1 RNAs in these growth conditions (Fig. 6C).
|
| DISCUSSION |
|---|
|
|
|---|
A Sodium-specific Process for GCN4 ActivationIn the yeast S. cerevisiae, starvation for amino acids or the presence of sodium induce phosphorylation of eIf2
by Gcn2 protein kinase, which leads to elevated translation of GCN4 (40, 41, 51). Stress signals activating Gcn2p in response to NaCl exposure are not well understood, however. In the case of amino acid starvation, the elevated levels of uncharged tRNA associate with the histidyl-tRNA synthetase-related domain of Gcn2p, leading to an enhancement of kinase-substrate interaction and phosphorylation of eIF2
(52). Elevated levels of NaCl have been shown to reduce uptake of many different amino acids (46), and this is one explanation for the activation of Gcn2p. Consistent with this idea, lithium treatment does not significantly affect the transport rate of amino acids (41) and does not strongly enhance GCN4 derepression (Table 1). However, GCN4 expression can be induced in prototrophic strains in response to 1 M NaCl (41), arguing against a model in which limited amino acid uptake triggers activation of Gcn2p. Moreover, it has also been reported that high concentrations of sodium or potassium reduce amino acid uptake equally, without a noticeable induction of GCN4 expression in the case of potassium (40) (Table 1). It has been proposed that dimerization of Gcn2p contributes to its own activation, and thus increased expression of GCN4, during NaCl-induced stress (41). All these results taken together support the idea that some sodium-specific cellular processes, not directly related to amino acid transport, potassium, or lithium, are involved in the effect on GCN4 expression observed here.
Gcn4p Does Not Regulate the pAp Pool through Hal1p under Conditions of NaCl StressGcn4p has been referred to as the "master regulator" of many genes involved in remedying stress perturbations (26), and thus one possible reason for the elevated accumulation of pAp in gcn4 mutants during salt stress was that high intracellular concentrations of toxic ions persist and inhibit Hal2p enzyme activity. At first glance, HAL1 looked like a good candidate for a Gcn4p-dependent control of ion homeostasis for multiple reasons. Hal1p functions in the maintenance of cellular Na+/K+ ion balance and confers salt tolerance when overexpressed in yeast cells, and loss of Gcn4p activity prevents HAL1 expression in response to high salt concentrations (46). It was therefore possible that a modest increase in GCN4 expression enhanced sodium efflux, through Hal1p-mediated activation of the sodium-pumping Ena1p ATPase (19, 53). The fact that pAp accumulation is similar in hal1
and wild type cells in the presence of salt (Fig. 5A) excludes the possibility that the lack of Gcn4p-dependent activation of HAL1 was responsible for pAp accumulation through inhibition of Hal2p activity. These results supports another hypothesis proposed by Pascual-Ahuir et al. (46) in which the loss of GCN4 expression does not affect factors implicated in ion homeostasis. This hypothesis was based on the observations that the intracellular accumulation of sodium and potassium was not significantly altered by loss of GCN2 function after NaCl shock and therefore should not be altered by loss of GCN4 expression.
HAL2/MET22 expression depends strongly on GCN4 expression, in contrast to other MET genes in S. cerevisiae. The accumulation of pAp during salt stress can be explained by a defect in HAL2 expression in the gcn4
mutant, with the remaining Hal2p being a target for toxic lithium and sodium ions. We initially considered this unlikely because HAL2/MET22 expression was expected to be optimal and independent of Gcn4p, as has been shown for other MET genes in these growth conditions (Fig. 1) (11). In our experimental conditions, cells were grown in the absence of extracellular methionine and cysteine, leading to maximal activation of the sulfate assimilation pathway. Under these conditions, the enzymatic activity of the products of the MET3, MET14, and MET16 genes and other methionine biosynthetic MET genes is high because of their transcriptional activation by Met4p in response to methionine limitation (11, 54). Although MET16 transcription is enhanced by MET4 when the level of extracellular methionine is low, a second mechanism, involving GCN4, can also trigger MET16 expression (55). However, GCN4 was shown not to be essential for the methionine-specific (MET4-dependent) regulation of MET16 since MET16 gene induction still occurs in a gcn4 mutant upon methionine withdrawal. Apparently, Gcn4p-dependent expression of HAL2 is different because we showed that the lack of GCN4 expression, or modification of a cis-element responding to Gcn4p in the UAS of HAL2, has a severe negative effect on Hal2p accumulation in the absence of methionine. This deficiency in HAL2 expression only becomes critical in the presence of sodium (Fig. 6A) since, in the absence of salt, even the low levels of Hal2p are sufficient to metabolize pAp (Fig. 5). Interestingly, this Gcn4p-dependent regulation of HAL2 expression is likely to be conserved in different yeast species (see the Supplemental Data).
|
mutant in the absence of methionine and in the presence of salt (Fig. 4). Since inhibition of the Xrn1p activity occurs in the gcn4
mutant under these conditions, we propose that the primary role of Gcn4p-mediated regulation of hal2p is to limit the inhibition of the 5'3'-mRNA degradation pathway. Gcn4p-dependent Maintenance of 5'3'-RNA Degradation Can Be Viewed as a Facilitator of the Stress ResponseS. cerevisiae cells respond rapidly to conditions of salt stress by activating many sets of genes (56). Microarray analysis of yeast cells grown at high salinity showed an early up-regulation of transcripts related to nucleotide and amino acid metabolism in particular, as well as transcripts related to cellular energy production (56). Therefore, the maintenance of Xrn1p activity, which produces 5'-mononucleotides from RNA, can be viewed as a means of maintaining cellular nucleotide pools, in addition to a means saving cells from a highly energy-consuming process such as the translation of decapped mRNAs (7, 8). In this way, cells are assured of Xrn1p activity during sodium stress via the Gcn4p-dependent regulatory mechanism.
We believe that maintenance of Xrn1p activity helps to accurately mount this stress response since deletion of XRN1 is known to produce significant changes in protein accumulation and expression patterns. Proteome analysis has revealed that many of the proteins up-regulated in a Xrn1p-deficient strain are involved in amino acid biosynthesis and amine and nitrogen metabolism and produce other perturbations in sucrose, purine, and pyrimidine metabolism (9). Proteome analysis also identified proteins that are significantly down-regulated in the xrn1
strain such as different structural components of the ribosome and factors involved in protein synthesis. Thus, inhibition of Xrn1p by pAp under conditions of salt stress would be likely to produce an inaccurate stress response or, at the very least, modify its timing.
| FOOTNOTES |
|---|
The on-line version of this article (available at http://www.jbc.org) contains two supplemental tables, a supplemental figure, and supplemental references. ![]()
1 Recipient of a fellowship from the Ministère pour la Recherche et la Technologie. ![]()
2 To whom correspondence should be addressed: Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique, CNRS UPR 9073, 13, rue Pierre et Marie Curie, 75005 Paris, France. Tel.: 33-1-58-41-51-30; Fax: 33-1-58-41-50-20; E-mail: lionel.benard{at}ibpc.fr.
3 The abbreviations used are: pAp, 3'-phosphoadenosine 5'-phosphate; ApS, adenosine 5'-phosphosulfate; 3-AT, 3-amino-1,2,4-triazole; GCRE, Gcn4p-response element; SD, synthetic minimum medium; HPLC, high pressure liquid chromatography; WT, wild type. ![]()
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
|---|
| REFERENCES |
|---|
|
|
|---|
This article has been cited by other articles:
![]() |
V. Hilgers, D. Teixeira, and R. Parker Translation-independent inhibition of mRNA deadenylation during stress in Saccharomyces cerevisiae RNA, October 1, 2006; 12(10): 1835 - 1845. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
| ||||||||||||