Hop Cleavage and Function in Granzyme B-induced Apoptosis

doi:10.1074/jbc.M607969200

Hop Cleavage and Function in Granzyme B-induced Apoptosis^*

^{^‡}Division of Oncology, Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri 63110 and the ^{^§}Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Scottsdale, Arizona 85259

2 To whom correspondence should be addressed: Div. of Oncology, Dept. of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, Campus Box 8007, 660 South Euclid Ave., St. Louis, MO 63110. Tel.: 314-362-8831; Fax: 314-362-9333; E-mail: tley{at}im.wustl.edu.

Abstract

Granzyme B (GzmB) is a cytotoxic protease found in the granules of natural killer cells and cytotoxic T lymphocytes. GzmB cleaves multiple intracellular protein substrates, leading to caspase activation, DNA fragmentation, cytoskeletal instability, and rapid induction of target cell apoptosis. However, no known individual substrate is required for GzmB to induce apoptosis. GzmB is therefore thought to initiate multiple cell death pathways simultaneously to ensure the death of target cells. We previously identified Hop (Hsp70/Hsp90-organizing protein) as a GzmB substrate in a proteomic survey (Bredemeyer, A. J., Lewis, R. M., Malone, J. P., Davis, A. E., Gross, J., Townsend, R. R., and Ley, T. J. (2004) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 101, 11785-11790). Hop is a co-chaperone for Hsp70 and Hsp90, which have been implicated in the negative regulation of apoptosis. We therefore hypothesized that Hop may have an anti-apoptotic function that is abolished upon cleavage, lowering the threshold for GzmB-induced apoptosis. Here, we show that Hop was cleaved directly by GzmB in vitro and in cells undergoing GzmB-induced apoptosis. Expression of the two cleavage fragments of Hop did not induce cell death. Although cleavage of Hop by GzmB destroyed Hop function in vitro, both cells overexpressing GzmB-resistant Hop and cells with a 90-95% reduction in Hop levels exhibited unaltered susceptibility to GzmB-induced death. We conclude that Hop per se does not set the threshold for susceptibility to GzmB-induced apoptosis. Although it is possible that Hop may be cleaved by GzmB as an “innocent bystander” during the induction of apoptosis, it may also act to facilitate apoptosis in concert with other GzmB substrates.

Footnotes

↵³ The abbreviations used are: GzmB, granzyme B; GzmA, granzyme A; rGzmB, recombinant murine granzyme B; Z, benzyloxycarbonyl; fmk, fluoromethyl ketone; WT, wild-type; rHop, recombinant human Hop; 7-AAD, 7-aminoactinomycin D; GFP, green fluorescent protein; GFP^hi, high GFP; siRNA, small interfering RNA; EGFP, enhanced green fluorescent protein; EYFP, enhanced yellow fluorescent protein; CFSE, 5(6)-carboxyfluorescein diacetate N-succinimidyl ester; NK, natural killer; TPR, tetratricopeptide repeat; ES, embryonic stem.
↵⁴ A. J. Bredemeyer, M. A. Ford, R. R. Townsend, and T. J. Ley, unpublished data.
↵⁵ T. A. Fehniger and T. J. Ley, unpublished data.
↵⁶ A. J. Bredemeyer, M. A. Ford, J. A. Ratner, R. R. Townsend, and T. J. Ley, unpublished data.
↵⁷ A. J. Bredemeyer and T. J. Ley, unpublished data.
↵^* This work was supported in part by National Institutes of Health Grants R01-DK44923 (to D. F. S) and R01-DK49786 (to T. J. L). 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 Supported by a predoctoral training grant in tumor immunology from the Cancer Research Institute.
- Received August 21, 2006.
- Revision received September 22, 2006.
The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.