Annuaire
2018
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Accurate detection of convergent amino-acid evolution with PCOC.
- Journal : Mol Biol Evol
- 2018
- In the history of life, some phenotypes have been acquired several times independently, through convergent evolution. Recently, lots of genome-scale studies have been devoted to identify nucleotides or amino acids that changed ina convergent manner when the convergent phenotypes evolved. These efforts have had mixed results, probably because of differences in the detection methods, andbecause of conceptual differences about the definition of a convergent substitution. Some methods contend that substitutions are convergent only if they occur on all branches where the phenotype changed towards the exact same state at a given nucleotide or amino acid position. Others are much looser in their requirements and define a convergent substitution as one that leads the site at which they occur to prefer a phylogeny in which species with the convergent phenotype group together. Here we suggest to look for convergent shifts in aminoacid preferences instead of convergent substitutions to the exact same amino acid. We define as convergent shifts substitutions that occur on all branches where the phenotype changed and such that they correspond to a change in the type of amino acid preferred at this position. We implement the corresponding model into a method named PCOC. We show on simulations that PCOC better recovers convergent shifts than existing methods in terms of sensitivity and specificity.We test it on a plant protein alignment where convergent evolution has been studied in detail and find that our method recovers several previously identified convergent substitutions and proposes credible new candidates.
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Alternative mRNA processing sites decrease genetic variability while increasing functional diversity
- Journal : Transcription
- 2018
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ASF1 is required to load histones on the HIRA complex in preparation of paternal chromatin assembly at fertilization.
- Journal : Epigenetics Chromatin
- 2018
- BACKGROUND: Anti-Silencing Factor 1 (ASF1) is a conserved H3-H4 histone chaperone involved in both Replication-Coupled and Replication-Independent (RI) nucleosomeassembly pathways. At DNA replication forks, ASF1 plays an important role in regulating the supply of H3.1/2 and H4 to the CAF-1 chromatin assembly complex. ASF1 also provides H3.3-H4 dimers to HIRA and DAXX chaperones for RI nucleosome assembly. The early Drosophila embryo is an attractive system to study chromatinassembly in a developmental context. The formation of a diploid zygote begins with the unique, genome-wide RI assembly of paternal chromatin following sperm protamine eviction. Then, within the same cytoplasm, syncytial embryonic nuclei undergo a series of rapid, synchronous S and M phases to form the blastoderm embryo. Here, we have investigated the implication of ASF1 in these two distinctassembly processes. RESULTS: We show that depletion of the maternal pool of ASF1with a specific shRNA induces a fully penetrant, maternal effect embryo lethal phenotype. Unexpectedly, despite the depletion of ASF1 protein to undetectable levels, we show that asf1 knocked-down (KD) embryos can develop to various stages, thus demonstrating that ASF1 is not absolutely required for the amplification of cleavage nuclei. Remarkably, we found that ASF1 is required forthe formation of the male pronucleus, although ASF1 protein does not reside in the decondensing sperm nucleus. In asf1 KD embryos, HIRA localizes to the male nucleus but is only capable of limited and insufficient chromatin assembly. Finally, we show that the conserved HIRA B domain, which is involved in ASF1-HIRA interaction, is dispensable for female fertility. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that ASF1 is critically required to load H3.3-H4 dimers on the HIRA complex prior to histone deposition on paternal DNA. This separation of tasks could optimize the rapid assembly of paternal chromatin within the gigantic volume of the egg cell.In contrast, ASF1 is surprisingly dispensable for the amplification of cleavage nuclei, although chromatin integrity is likely compromised in KD embryos.
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Assigning function to natural allelic variation via dynamic modeling of gene network induction.
- Journal : Mol Syst Biol
- 2018
- More and more natural DNA variants are being linked to physiological traits. Yet, understanding what differences they make on molecular regulations remains challenging. Important properties of gene regulatory networks can be captured bycomputational models. If model parameters can be "personalized" according to thegenotype, their variation may then reveal how DNA variants operate in the network. Here, we combined experiments and computations to visualize natural alleles of the yeast GAL3 gene in a space of model parameters describing the galactose response network. Alleles altering the activation of Gal3p by galactose were discriminated from those affecting its activity (production/degradation or efficiency of the activated protein). The approach allowed us to correctly predict that a non-synonymous SNP would change the binding affinity of Gal3p with the Gal80p transcriptional repressor. Our results illustrate how personalizing gene regulatory models can be used for the mechanistic interpretation of geneticvariants.
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Automated cell cycle and cell size measurements for single-cell gene expression studies
- Journal : BMC Res Notes
- 2018
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CAARS: comparative assembly and annotation of RNA-Seq data.
- Journal : Bioinformatics
- 2018
- Motivation: RNA sequencing is a widely used approach to obtain transcript sequences in non-model organisms, notably for performing comparative analyses. However, current bioinformatic pipelines do not take full advantage of pre-existing reference data in related species for improving RNA-seq assembly, annotation, and gene family reconstruction. Results: We built an automated pipeline named CAARS to combine novel data from RNA-Seq experiments with existing multi-species gene family alignments. RNA-Seq reads are assembled into transcripts by both de novo and assisted assemblies. Then, CAARS incorporates transcripts into gene families, builds gene alignments and trees, and uses phylogenetic information to classify the genes as orthologs and paralogs of existing genes. We used CAARS to assemble and annotate RNA-Seq data in rodents and fishes using distantly related genomes as reference, a difficult case for this kind of analysis. We showed CAARS assemblies are more complete and accuratethan those assembled by a standard pipeline consisting of de novo assembly coupled with annotation by sequence similarity on a guide species. In addition to annotated transcripts, CAARS provides gene family alignments and trees, annotated with orthology relationships, directly usable for downstream comparative analyses. Availability and implementation: CAARS is implemented in Python and Ocaml and is freely available at https://github.com/carinerey/caars. Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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Characterizing meiotic chromosomes' structure and pairing using a designer sequence optimized for Hi-C
- Journal : Molecular systems biology
- 2018
- In all chromosome conformation capture based experiments the accuracy with which contacts are detected varies considerably because of the uneven distribution of restriction sites along genomes. In addition, repeated sequences as well as homologous regions in isogenic diploid backgrounds remain indistinguishable by the assay because of the ambiguities they introduce during the alignment of the sequencing reads along the genome. As a result, the investigation of homologs during meiosis prophase through 3C studies has been limited. Here, we redesigned and reassembled in yeast a 145kb region with regularly spaced restriction sites for various enzymes. Thanks to this Syn-HiC design, we enhanced the signal to noise ratio and improved our understanding of Hi-C data and definition of resolution. The redesigned sequence is now distinguishable from its native homologous counterpart in an isogenic diploid strain. As a proof of principle, we track the establishment of homolog pairing during meiotic prophase in a synchronized population. This provides new insights on the individualization and pairing of homologs, as well as on their internal restructuration into arrays of loops during meiosis prophase. Overall, we show the interest of redesigned genomic regions to explore complex biological questions otherwise difficult to address.
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Complementarity of assembly-first and mapping-first approaches for alternative splicing annotation and differential analysis from RNAseq data
- Journal : Sci Rep
- 2018
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Condensin controls cellular RNA levels through the accurate segregation of chromosomes instead of directly regulating transcription.
- Journal : Elife
- 2018
- Condensins are genome organisers that shape chromosomes and promote their accurate transmission. Several studies have also implicated condensins in gene expression, although any mechanisms have remained enigmatic. Here, we report on the role of condensin in gene expression in fission and budding yeasts. In contrast to previous studies, we provide compelling evidence that condensin plays no direct role in the maintenance of the transcriptome, neither during interphase nor during mitosis. We further show that the changes in gene expression in post-mitotic fission yeast cells that result from condensin inactivation are largely a consequence of chromosome missegregation during anaphase, which notably depletes the RNA-exosome from daughter cells. Crucially, preventing karyotype abnormalities in daughter cells restores a normal transcriptome despite condensin inactivation. Thus, chromosome instability, rather than a direct role of condensin in the transcription process, changes gene expression. This knowledge challenges the concept of gene regulation by canonical condensin complexes.
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Crystal structure of Escherichia coli DEAH/RHA helicase HrpB.
- Journal : Biochem Biophys Res Commun
- 2018
- RNA helicases are almost ubiquitous important enzymes that take part in multipleaspects of RNA metabolism. Prokaryotes encode fewer RNA helicases than eukaryotes, suggesting that individual prokaryotic RNA helicases may take on multiple roles. The specific functions and molecular mechanisms of bacterial DEAH/RHA helicases are poorly understood, and no structures are available of these bacterial enzymes. Here, we report the first crystal structure of the DEAH/RHA helicase HrpB of Escherichia coli in a complex with ADP*AlF4. It showedan atypical globular structure, consisting of two RecA domains, an HA2 domain and an OB domain, similar to eukaryotic DEAH/RHA helicases. Notably, it showed a unique C-terminal extension that has never been reported before. Activity assaysindicated that EcHrpB binds RNA but not DNA, and does not exhibit unwinding activity in vitro. Thus, within cells, the EcHrpB may function in helicase activity-independent RNA metabolic processes.
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Drosophila p53 integrates the antagonism between autophagy and apoptosis in response to stress.
- Journal : Autophagy
- 2018
- The tumor suppressor TP53/p53 is a known regulator of apoptosis and macroautophagy/autophagy. However, the molecular mechanism by which TP53 regulates 2 apparently incompatible processes remains unknown. We found that Drosophila lacking p53 displayed impaired autophagic flux, higher caspase activation and mortality in response to oxidative stress compared with wild-typeflies. Moreover, autophagy and apoptosis were differentially regulated by the p53 (p53B) and DeltaNp53 (p53A) isoforms: while the former induced autophagy in differentiated neurons, which protected against cell death, the latter inhibitedautophagy by activating the caspases Dronc, Drice, and Dcp-1. Our results demonstrate that the differential use of p53 isoforms combined with the antagonism between apoptosis and autophagy ensures the generation of an appropriate p53 biological response to stress.
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DRP-1-mediated apoptosis induces muscle degeneration in dystrophin mutants.
- Journal : Sci Rep
- 2018
- Mitochondria are double-membrane subcellular organelles with highly conserved metabolic functions including ATP production. Mitochondria shapes change continually through the combined actions of fission and fusion events rendering mitochondrial network very dynamic. Mitochondria are largely implicated in pathologies and mitochondrial dynamics is often disrupted upon muscle degeneration in various models. Currently, the exact roles of mitochondria in the molecular mechanisms that lead to muscle degeneration remain poorly understood. Here we report a role for DRP-1 in regulating apoptosis induced by dystrophin-dependent muscle degeneration. We found that: (i) dystrophin-dependent muscle degeneration was accompanied by a drastic increase in mitochondrial fragmentation that can be rescued by genetic manipulations of mitochondrial dynamics (ii) the loss of function of the fission gene drp-1 or the overexpression of the fusion genes eat-3 and fzo-1 provoked a reduction of muscle degeneration and an improved mobility of dystrophin mutant worms (iii) the functions of DRP-1 in apoptosis and of others apoptosis executors are important for dystrophin-dependent muscle cell death (iv) DRP-1-mediated apoptosis is alsolikely to induce age-dependent loss of muscle cell. Collectively, our findings point toward a mechanism involving mitochondrial dynamics to respond to trigger(s) of muscle degeneration via apoptosis in Caenorhabditis elegans.
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Epigenomics in 3D: importance of long-range spreading and specific interactions in epigenomic maintenance.
- Journal : Nucleic Acids Res
- 2018
- Recent progresses of genome-wide chromatin conformation capture techniques have shown that the genome is segmented into hierarchically organized spatial compartments. However, whether this non-random 3D organization only reflects or indeed contributes-and how-to the regulation of genome function remain to be elucidated. The observation in many species that 3D domains correlate strongly with the 1D epigenomic information along the genome suggests a dynamic coupling between chromatin organization and epigenetic regulation. Here, we posit that chromosome folding may contribute to the maintenance of a robust epigenomic identity via the formation of spatial compartments like topologically-associating domains. Using a novel theoretical framework, the living chromatin model, we show that 3D compartmentalization leads to the spatial colocalization of epigenome regulators, thus increasing their local concentration and enhancing their ability to spread an epigenomic signal at long-range. Interestingly, we find that the presence of 1D insulator elements, like CTCF, may contribute greatly to the stable maintenance of adjacent antagonistic epigenomic domains. We discuss the generic implications of our findings in the light of various biological contextsfrom yeast to human. Our approach provides a modular framework to improve our understanding and to investigate in details the coupling between the structure and function of chromatin.
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Evolution of mitotic spindle behavior during the first asymmetric embryonic division of nematodes.
- Journal : PLoS Biol
- 2018
- Asymmetric cell division is essential to generate cellular diversity. In many animal cells, the cleavage plane lies perpendicular to the mitotic spindle, and it is the spindle positioning that dictates the size of the daughter cells. Although some properties of spindle positioning are conserved between distantly related model species and different cell types, little is known of the evolutionary robustness of the mechanisms underlying this event. We recorded thefirst embryonic division of 42 species of nematodes closely related to Caenorhabditis elegans, which is an excellent model system to study the biophysical properties of asymmetric spindle positioning. Our recordings, corresponding to 128 strains from 27 Caenorhabditis and 15 non-Caenorhabditis species (accessible at http://www.ens-lyon.fr/LBMC/NematodeCell/videos/), constitute a powerful collection of subcellular phenotypes to study the evolution of various cellular processes across species. In the present work, we analyzed our collection to the study of asymmetric spindle positioning. Although all the strains underwent an asymmetric first cell division, they exhibited large intra-and inter-species variations in the degree of cell asymmetry and in several parameters controlling spindle movement, including spindle oscillation, elongation, and displacement. Notably, these parameters changed frequently during evolution with no apparent directionality in the species phylogeny, with the exception of spindle transverse oscillations, which were an evolutionary innovation at the base of the Caenorhabditis genus. These changes were also unrelated to evolutionary variations in embryo size. Importantly, spindle elongation, displacement, and oscillation each evolved independently. This finding contrasts starkly with expectations based on C. elegans studies and reveals previously unrecognized evolutionary changes in spindle mechanics. Collectively, these data demonstrate that, while the essential process of asymmetric cell division has been conserved over the course of nematode evolution, the underlying spindle movement parameters can combine in various ways. Like other developmental processes, asymmetric cell division is subject tosystem drift.
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From "the Worm" to "the Worms" and Back Again: The Evolutionary Developmental Biology of Nematodes.
- Journal : Genetics
- 2018
- Since the earliest days of research on nematodes, scientists have noted the developmental and morphological variation that exists within and between species. As various cellular and developmental processes were revealed through intense focus on Caenorhabditis elegans, these comparative studies have expanded. Withinthe genus Caenorhabditis, they include characterization of intraspecific polymorphisms and comparisons of distinct species, all generally amenable to thesame laboratory culture methods and supported by robust genomic and experimentaltools. The C. elegans paradigm has also motivated studies with more distantly related nematodes and animals. Combined with improved phylogenies, this work hasled to important insights about the evolution of nematode development. First, while many aspects of C. elegans development are representative of Caenorhabditis, and of terrestrial nematodes more generally, others vary in waysboth obvious and cryptic. Second, the system has revealed several clear examplesof developmental flexibility in achieving a particular trait. This includes developmental system drift, in which the developmental control of homologous traits has diverged in different lineages, and cases of convergent evolution. Overall, the wealth of information and experimental techniques developed in C. elegans is being leveraged to make nematodes a powerful system for evolutionary cellular and developmental biology.
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Functions of DEAD box RNA helicases DDX5 and DDX17 in chromatin organization and transcriptional regulation
- Journal : BMB Rep
- 2018
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Genomics of cellular proliferation in periodic environmental fluctuations.
- Journal : Mol Syst Biol
- 2018
- Living systems control cell growth dynamically by processing information from their environment. Although responses to a single environmental change have beenintensively studied, little is known about how cells react to fluctuating conditions. Here, we address this question at the genomic scale by measuring therelative proliferation rate (fitness) of 3,568 yeast gene deletion mutants in out-of-equilibrium conditions: periodic oscillations between two environmental conditions. In periodic salt stress, fitness and its genetic variance largely depended on the oscillating period. Surprisingly, dozens of mutants displayed pronounced hyperproliferation under short stress periods, revealing unexpected controllers of growth under fast dynamics. We validated the implication of the high-affinity cAMP phosphodiesterase and of a regulator of protein translocationto mitochondria in this group. Periodic oscillations of extracellular methionine, a factor unrelated to salinity, also altered fitness but to a lesser extent and for different genes. The results illustrate how natural selection acts on mutations in a dynamic environment, highlighting unsuspected genetic vulnerabilities to periodic stress in molecular processes that are conserved across all eukaryotes.
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How epigenome drives chromatin folding and dynamics, insights from efficient coarse-grained models of chromosomes.
- Journal : PLoS Comput Biol
- 2018
- The 3D organization of chromosomes is crucial for regulating gene expression andcell function. Many experimental and polymer modeling efforts are dedicated to deciphering the mechanistic principles behind chromosome folding. Chromosomes are long and densely packed-topologically constrained-polymers. The main challenges are therefore to develop adequate models and simulation methods to investigate properly the multi spatio-temporal scales of such macromolecules. Here, we proposed a generic strategy to develop efficient coarse-grained models for self-avoiding polymers on a lattice. Accounting accurately for the polymer entanglement length and the volumic density, we show that our simulation scheme not only captures the steady-state structural and dynamical properties of the system but also tracks the same dynamics at different coarse-graining. This strategy allows a strong power-law gain in numerical efficiency and offers a systematic way to define reliable coarse-grained null models for chromosomes andto go beyond the current limitations by studying long chromosomes during an extended time period with good statistics. We use our formalism to investigate in details the time evolution of the 3D organization of chromosome 3R (20 Mbp) in drosophila during one cell cycle (20 hours). We show that a combination of our coarse-graining strategy with a one-parameter block copolymer model integrating epigenomic-driven interactions quantitatively reproduce experimental data at thechromosome-scale and predict that chromatin motion is very dynamic during the cell cycle.
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HTLV-1 Tax plugs and freezes UPF1 helicase leading to nonsense-mediated mRNA decay inhibition.
- Journal : Nat Commun
- 2018
- Up-Frameshift Suppressor 1 Homolog (UPF1) is a key factor for nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD), a cellular process that can actively degrade mRNAs. Here, we study NMD inhibition during infection by human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-1) and characterise the influence of the retroviral Tax factor on UPF1 activity. Tax interacts with the central helicase core domain of UPF1 and might plug the RNA channel of UPF1, reducing its affinity for nucleic acids. Furthermore, using a single-molecule approach, we show that the sequential interaction of Tax with a RNA-bound UPF1 freezes UPF1: this latter is less sensitive to the presence of ATP and shows translocation defects, highlighting the importance of this feature for NMD. These mechanistic insights reveal how HTLV-1 hijacks the central component of NMD to ensure expression of its own genome.
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Identification of Splicing Factors Involved in DMD Exon Skipping Events Using an In Vitro RNA Binding Assay
- Journal : Methods Mol Biol
- 2018
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Insights into the structural and mechanistic basis of multifunctional S. cerevisiae Pif1p helicase.
- Journal : Nucleic Acids Res
- 2018
- The Saccharomyces cerevisiae Pif1 protein (ScPif1p) is the prototypical member of the Pif1 family of DNA helicases. ScPif1p is involved in the maintenance of mitochondrial, ribosomal and telomeric DNA and suppresses genome instability at G-quadruplex motifs. Here, we report the crystal structures of a truncated ScPif1p (ScPif1p237-780) in complex with different ssDNAs. Our results have revealed that a yeast-specific insertion domain protruding from the 2B domain folds as a bundle bearing an alpha-helix, alpha16. The alpha16 helix regulates the helicase activities of ScPif1p through interactions with the previously identified loop3. Furthermore, a biologically relevant dimeric structure has been identified, which can be further specifically stabilized by G-quadruplex DNA. Basing on structural analyses and mutational studies with DNA binding and unwinding assays, a potential G-quadruplex DNA binding site in ScPif1p monomers is suggested. Our results also show that ScPif1p uses the Q-motif to preferentially hydrolyze ATP, and a G-rich tract is preferentially recognized bymore residues, consistent with previous biochemical observations. These findingsprovide a structural and mechanistic basis for understanding the multifunctionalScPif1p.
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Investigating the role of the experimental protocol in phenylhydrazine-induced anemia on mice recovery
- Journal : J Theor Biol
- 2018
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Microtubule Feedback and LET-99-Dependent Control of Pulling Forces Ensure Robust Spindle Position.
- Journal : Biophys J
- 2018
- During asymmetric division of the Caenorhabditis elegans zygote, to properly distribute cell fate determinants, the mitotic spindle is asymmetrically localized by a combination of centering and cortical-pulling microtubule-mediated forces, the dynamics of the latter being regulated by mitotic progression. Here,we show a, to our knowledge, novel and additional regulation of these forces by spindle position itself. For that, we observed the onset of transverse spindle oscillations, which reflects the burst of anaphase pulling forces. After delaying anaphase onset, we found that the position at which the spindle starts to oscillate was unchanged compared to control embryos and uncorrelated to anaphaseonset. In mapping the cortical microtubule dynamics, we measured a steep increase in microtubule contact density after the posterior centrosome reached the critical position of 70% of embryo length, strongly suggesting the presence of apositional switch for spindle oscillations. Expanding a previous model based on a force-generator temporal control, we implemented this positional switch and observed that the large increase in microtubule density accounted for the pulling force burst. Thus, we propose that the spindle position influences the cortical availability of microtubules on which the active force generators, controlled bycell cycle progression, can pull. Importantly, we found that this positional control relies on the polarity-dependent LET-99 cortical band, the boundary of which could be probed by microtubules. This dual positional and temporal controlwell accounted for our observation that the oscillation onset position resists changes in cellular geometry and moderate variations in the active force generator number. Finally, our model suggests that spindle position at mitosis end is more sensitive to the polarity factor LET-99, which restricts the region of active force generators to a posterior-most region, than to microtubule number or force generator number/activity. Overall, we show that robustness in spindle positioning originates in cell mechanics rather than biochemical networks.
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Multi-invasion-induced rearrangements as a pathway for physiological and pathological recombination
- Journal : Bioessays
- 2018
- Cells mitigate the detrimental consequences of DNA damage on genome stability by attempting high fidelity repair. Homologous recombination (HR) templates DNA double-strand break (DSB) repair on an identical or near identical donor sequence in a process that can in principle access the entire genome. Other physiological processes, such as homolog recognition and pairing during meiosis, also harness the HR machinery using programmed DSB to physically link homologs and generate crossovers. A consequence of the homology search process by a long nucleoprotein filament is the formation of multi-invasions (MI), a joint molecule in which the damaged ssDNA has invaded more than one donor molecule. Processing of MI joint molecules can compromise the integrity of both donor sites and lead to their rearrangement. Here, we detail two general mechanisms for the generation of rearrangements as a pathological consequence of MI processing and discuss the potential relevance for non-allelic homologous recombination. In addition, we discuss that MI-induced crossover formation may be a feature of physiological meiotic recombination.
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PDZ domain-binding motif of Tax sustains T-cell proliferation in HTLV-1-infected humanized mice.
- Journal : PLoS Pathog
- 2018
- Human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is the etiological agent of adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATLL), an aggressive malignant proliferation of activated CD4+ T lymphocytes. The viral Tax oncoprotein is critically involved in both HTLV-1-replication and T-cell proliferation, a prerequisite to the development of ATLL. In this study, we investigated the in vivo contribution of the Tax PDZ domain-binding motif (PBM) to the lymphoproliferative process. To that aim, we examined T-cell proliferation in humanized mice (hu-mice) carrying a human hemato-lymphoid system infected with either a wild type (WT) or a Tax PBM-deleted (DeltaPBM) provirus. We observed that the frequency of CD4+ activated T-cells in the peripheral blood and in the spleen was significantly higher in WTthan in DeltaPBM hu-mice. Likewise, human T-cells collected from WT hu-mice and cultivated in vitro in presence of interleukin-2 were proliferating at a higher level than those from DeltaPBM animals. We next examined the association of Tax with the Scribble PDZ protein, a prominent regulator of T-cell polarity, in human T-cells analyzed either after ex vivo isolation or after in vitro culture. We confirmed the interaction of Tax with Scribble only in T-cells from the WT hu-mice. This association correlated with the presence of both proteins in aggregates at the leading edge of the cells and with the formation of long actinfilopods. Finally, data from a comparative genome-wide transcriptomic analysis suggested that the PBM-PDZ association is implicated in the expression of genes regulating proliferation, apoptosis and cytoskeletal organization. Collectively,our findings suggest that the Tax PBM is an auxiliary motif that contributes to the sustained growth of HTLV-1 infected T-cells in vivo and in vitro and is essential to T-cell immortalization.
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PDZ domain-binding motif of Tax sustains T-cell proliferation in HTLV-1-infected humanized mice.
- Journal : PLoS Pathog
- 2018
- Human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is the etiological agent of adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATLL), an aggressive malignant proliferation of activated CD4+ T lymphocytes. The viral Tax oncoprotein is critically involved in both HTLV-1-replication and T-cell proliferation, a prerequisite to the development of ATLL. In this study, we investigated the in vivo contribution of the Tax PDZ domain-binding motif (PBM) to the lymphoproliferative process. To that aim, we examined T-cell proliferation in humanized mice (hu-mice) carrying a human hemato-lymphoid system infected with either a wild type (WT) or a Tax PBM-deleted (DeltaPBM) provirus. We observed that the frequency of CD4+ activated T-cells in the peripheral blood and in the spleen was significantly higher in WTthan in DeltaPBM hu-mice. Likewise, human T-cells collected from WT hu-mice and cultivated in vitro in presence of interleukin-2 were proliferating at a higher level than those from DeltaPBM animals. We next examined the association of Tax with the Scribble PDZ protein, a prominent regulator of T-cell polarity, in human T-cells analyzed either after ex vivo isolation or after in vitro culture. We confirmed the interaction of Tax with Scribble only in T-cells from the WT hu-mice. This association correlated with the presence of both proteins in aggregates at the leading edge of the cells and with the formation of long actinfilopods. Finally, data from a comparative genome-wide transcriptomic analysis suggested that the PBM-PDZ association is implicated in the expression of genes regulating proliferation, apoptosis and cytoskeletal organization. Collectively,our findings suggest that the Tax PBM is an auxiliary motif that contributes to the sustained growth of HTLV-1 infected T-cells in vivo and in vitro and is essential to T-cell immortalization.
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Physical and functional interaction between SET1/COMPASS complex component CFP-1 and a Sin3 HDAC complex
- Journal : bioRxiv
- 2018
Link to PubMed entry