Janet C. Harries's research while affiliated with University of Leicester and other places

Nuclear transport proteins such as CSE1, NUP93 and Importin-alpha have recently been shown to be chromatin-associated proteins in yeast, which have unexpected functions in gene regulation. Here we report interactions between the mammalian histone acetyltransferase CBP with nuclear transport proteins CAS (a CSE1 homologue) and Importin-alpha (Impalpha) and NUP93. CAS was found to bind the SRC1 interaction domain (SID) of CBP via a leucine-rich motif in the N-terminus of the protein, that is conserved in other SID-binding proteins. Coimmunoprecipitation experiments also revealed that CBP and Impalpha proteins form a complex. As Impalpha is a known acetylation target of CBP/p300, and is recycled to the cytoplasm via the exportin CAS, we investigated whether HDAC inhibitors would alter the subcellular localization of these proteins. Treatment of COS-1 cells with the HDAC inhibitors trichostatin A or sodium butyrate resulted in sequestration of Impalpha in the nuclear envelope, accumulation of CAS in nuclear aggregates, and an increased number of CBP-containing PML bodies per cell. In addition, HDACi treatment appeared to enhance the association of Impalpha and CBP in coimmunoprecipitation experiments. Our results provide evidence for novel functional interactions between the chromatin modification enzyme CBP and nuclear transport proteins in mammalian cells.

CREB-binding protein (CBP) and p300 contain modular domains that mediate protein-protein interactions with a wide variety of nuclear factors. A C-terminal domain of CBP (referred to as the SID) is responsible for interaction with the α-helical AD1 domain of p160 coactivators such as the steroid receptor coactivator (SRC1), and also other transcriptional regulators such as E1A, Ets-2, IRF3, and p53. Here we show that the pointed (PNT) domain of Ets-2 mediates its interaction with the CBP SID, and describe the effects of mutations in the SID on binding of Ets-2, E1A, and SRC1. In vitro binding studies indicate that SRC1, Ets-2 and E1A display mutually exclusive binding to the CBP SID. Consistent with this, we observed negative cross-talk between ERα/SRC1, Ets-2, and E1A proteins in reporter assays in transiently transfected cells. Transcriptional inhibition of Ets-2 or GAL4-AD1 activity by E1A was rescued by co-transfection with a CBP expression plasmid, consistent with the hypothesis that the observed inhibition was due to competition for CBP in vivo. Sequence comparisons revealed that SID-binding proteins contain a leucine-rich motif similar to the α-helix Aα1 of the SRC1 AD1 domain. Deletion mutants of E1A and Ets-2 lacking the conserved motif were unable to bind the CBP SID. Moreover, a peptide corresponding to this sequence competed the binding of full-length SRC1, Ets-2, and E1A proteins to the CBP SID. Thus, a leucine-rich amphipathic α-helix mediates mutually exclusive interactions of functionally diverse nuclear proteins with CBP.

Steroid receptors activate transcription in yeast cells via interactions with endogenous coactivators and/or basal factors. We examined the effects of mutations in the ligand binding domain on the transcriptional activity of ERalpha in yeast. Our results show that mutations in Helix 3 (K366A) and Helix 12 (M547A, L548A) disrupt transcriptional activity of ERalpha in yeast, as previously observed in mammalian cells. However, replacement of a conserved tyrosine residue in Helix 12 with alanine or aspartate (Y541A and Y541D), which renders ERalpha constitutively active in mammalian cells, had only a weak stimulatory effect on ligand-independent reporter activation by ERalpha in yeast. Two-hybrid interaction experiments revealed that a Y541A mutant expressed in yeast was capable of ligand-independent binding to a mammalian coactivator, suggesting that there is a subtle difference in how this mutant interacts with mammalian and yeast cofactors. We also show that the ligand-dependent activities of ERalpha and progesterone receptor (PR) in yeast cells were strongly enhanced by the human p160 protein steroid receptor coactivator (SRC1), but not by CREB-Binding Protein (CBP) or the p300/CBP associated factor (P/CAF). Although the SRC1 activation domains AD1 and AD2 are functional in yeast, deletion of these sequences only partially impaired SRC1 coactivator function in this organism; this is in contrast to similar experiments in mammalian cells. Thus SRC1 sequences involved in recruitment of CBP/p300 and Co-Activator-Associated Arginine Methyltransferase (CARM-1) in mammalian cells are not essential for its function in yeast, suggesting that SRC1 operates via distinct mechanisms in yeast and mammalian cells.

The transcriptional activity of nuclear receptors is mediated by coactivator proteins, including steroid receptor coactivator 1 (SRC1) and its homologues and the general coactivators CREB binding protein (CBP) and p300. SRC1 contains an activation domain (AD1) which functions via recruitment of CBP and and p300. In this study, we have used yeast two-hybrid and in vitro interaction-peptide inhibition experiments to map the AD1 domain of SRC1 to a 35-residue sequence potentially containing two α-helices. We also define a 72-amino-acid sequence in CBP necessary for SRC1 binding, designated the SRC1 interaction domain (SID). We show that in contrast to SRC1, direct binding of CBP to the estrogen receptor is weak, suggesting that SRC1 functions primarily as an adaptor to recruit CBP and p300. In support of this, we show that the ability of SRC1 to enhance ligand-dependent nuclear receptor activity in transiently transfected cells is dependent upon the integrity of the AD1 region. In contrast, the putative histone acetyltransferase domain, the Per-Arnt-Sim basic helix-loop-helix domain, the glutamine-rich domain, and AD2 can each be removed without loss of ligand-induced activity. Remarkably, a construct corresponding to residues 631 to 970, which contains only the LXXLL motifs and the AD1 region of SRC1, retained strong coactivator activity in our assays.