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Silencing motifs in the Clr2 protein from fission yeast, Schizosaccharomyces pombe.

ABSTRACT: The fission yeast, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, is a well-established model for heterochromatin formation, but the exact sequence of events for initiation remains to be elucidated. The essential factors involved include RNA transcribed from repeated sequences together with the methyltransferase Clr4. In addition, histone deacetylases, like Clr3, found in the SHREC complex are also necessary for transcriptional silencing. Clr2 is another crucial factor required for heterochromatin formation found in the SHREC complex. The function of Clr2 has been difficult to establish due to the lack of conserved domains or homology to proteins of known molecular function. Using a bioinformatics approach, three conserved motifs in Clr2 were identified, which contained amino acids important for transcriptional repression. Analysis of clr2 mutant strains revealed a major role for Clr2 in mating-type and rDNA silencing, and weaker effects on centromeric silencing. The effect on mating-type silencing showed variegation in several of the strains with mutated versions of Clr2 indicating an establishment or maintenance defect. Moreover, the critical amino acids in Clr2 were also necessary for transcriptional repression in a minimal system, by the tethering of Clr4 upstream of a reporter gene, inserted into the euchromatic part of the genome. Finally, in silico modeling suggested that the mutations in Clr2 cause disruption of secondary structures in the Clr2 protein. Identification of these critical amino acids in the protein provides a useful tool to explore the molecular mechanism behind the role of Clr2 in heterochromatin formation.

SUBMITTER: Steinhauf D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3903592 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Silencing motifs in the Clr2 protein from fission yeast, Schizosaccharomyces pombe.

Steinhauf Daniel D Rodriguez Alejandro A Vlachakis Dimitrios D Virgo Gordon G Maksimov Vladimir V Kristell Carolina C Olsson Ida I Linder Tomas T Kossida Sophia S Bongcam-Rudloff Erik E Bjerling Pernilla P

PloS one 20140127 1

The fission yeast, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, is a well-established model for heterochromatin formation, but the exact sequence of events for initiation remains to be elucidated. The essential factors involved include RNA transcribed from repeated sequences together with the methyltransferase Clr4. In addition, histone deacetylases, like Clr3, found in the SHREC complex are also necessary for transcriptional silencing. Clr2 is another crucial factor required for heterochromatin formation found i ...[more]

PMID: 24475199

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Project description:BackgroundHIV-1 protease (PR) is an essential viral enzyme. Its primary function is to proteolyze the viral Gag-Pol polyprotein for production of viral enzymes and structural proteins and for maturation of infectious viral particles. Increasing evidence suggests that PR cleaves host cellular proteins. However, the nature of PR-host cellular protein interactions is elusive. This study aimed to develop a fission yeast (Schizosaccharomyces pombe) model system and to examine the possible interaction of HIV-1 PR with cellular proteins and its potential impact on cell proliferation and viability.ResultsA fission yeast strain RE294 was created that carried a single integrated copy of the PR gene in its chromosome. The PR gene was expressed using an inducible nmt1 promoter so that PR-specific effects could be measured. HIV-1 PR from this system cleaved the same indigenous viral p6/MA protein substrate as it does in natural HIV-1 infections. HIV-1 PR expression in fission yeast cells prevented cell proliferation and induced cellular oxidative stress and changes in mitochondrial morphology that led to cell death. Both these PR activities can be prevented by a PR-specific enzymatic inhibitor, indinavir, suggesting that PR-mediated proteolytic activities and cytotoxic effects resulted from enzymatic activities of HIV-1 PR. Through genome-wide screening, a serine/threonine kinase, Hhp2, was identified that suppresses HIV-1 PR-induced protease cleavage and cell death in fission yeast and in mammalian cells, where it prevented PR-induced apoptosis and cleavage of caspase-3 and caspase-8.ConclusionsThis is the first report to show that HIV-1 protease is functional as an enzyme in fission yeast, and that it behaves in a similar manner as it does in HIV-1 infection. HIV-1 PR-induced cell death in fission yeast could potentially be used as an endpoint for mechanistic studies, and this system could be used for developing a high-throughput system for drug screenings.

Project description:BackgroundConstruction of plasmids is crucial in modern genetic manipulation. As of now, the common method for constructing plasmids is to digest specific DNA sequences with restriction enzymes and to ligate the resulting DNA fragments with DNA ligase. Another potent method to construct plasmids, known as gap-repair cloning (GRC), is commonly used in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. GRC makes use of the homologous recombination activity that occurs within the yeast cells. Due to its flexible design and efficiency, GRC has been frequently used for constructing plasmids with complex structures as well as genome-wide plasmid collections. Although there have been reports indicating GRC feasibility in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, this species is not commonly used for GRC as systematic studies of reporting GRC efficiency in S. pombe have not been performed till date.Methodology/principal findingsWe investigated GRC efficiency in S. pombe in this study. We first showed that GRC was feasible in S. pombe by constructing a plasmid that contained the LEU2 auxotrophic marker gene in vivo and showed sufficient efficiency with short homology sequences (>25 bp). No preference was shown for the sequence length from the cut site in the vector plasmid. We next showed that plasmids could be constructed in a proper way using 3 DNA fragments with 70% efficiency without any specific selections being made. The GRC efficiency with 3 DNA fragments was dramatically increased >95% in lig4Delta mutant cell, where non-homologous end joining is deficient. Following this approach, we successfully constructed plasmid vectors with leu1+, ade6+, his5+, and lys1+ markers with the low-copy stable plasmid pDblet as a backbone by applying GRC in S. pombe.Conclusions/significanceWe concluded that GRC was sufficiently feasible in S. pombe for genome-wide gene functional analysis as well as for regular plasmid construction. Plasmids with different markers constructed in this research are available from NBRP-yeast (http://yeast.lab.nig.ac.jp/).

Dataset Information

Silencing motifs in the Clr2 protein from fission yeast, Schizosaccharomyces pombe.

Publications

Silencing motifs in the Clr2 protein from fission yeast, Schizosaccharomyces pombe.

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