Identification and cloning of two isoforms of human high-temperature requirement factor A3 (HtrA3), characterization of its genomic structure and comparison of its tissue distribution with HtrA1 and HtrA2.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Nie GY
PROVIDER: S-EPMC1223265 | biostudies-other | 2003 Apr
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other
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Project description:BackgroundThe stromal component of the thymic microenvironment is critical for T lymphocyte generation. Thymocyte differentiation involves a cascade of coordinated stromal genes controlling thymocyte survival, lineage commitment and selection. The "Stromal Protein Associated with Thymii And Lymph-node" (Spatial) gene encodes a putative transcription factor which may be involved in T-cell development. In the testis, the Spatial gene is also expressed by round spermatids during spermatogenesis.ResultsThe Spatial gene maps to the B3-B4 region of murine chromosome 10 corresponding to the human syntenic region 10q22.1. The mouse Spatial genomic DNA is organised into 10 exons and is alternatively spliced to generate two short isoforms (Spatial-alpha and -gamma) and two other long isoforms (Spatial-delta and -epsilon) comprising 5 additional exons on the 3' site. Here, we report the cloning of a new short isoform, Spatial-beta, which differs from other isoforms by an additional alternative exon of 69 bases. This new exon encodes an interesting proline-rich signature that could confer to the 34 kDa Spatial-beta protein a particular function. By quantitative TaqMan RT-PCR, we have shown that the short isoforms are highly expressed in the thymus while the long isoforms are highly expressed in the testis. We further examined the inter-species conservation of Spatial between several mammals and identified that the protein which is rich in proline and positive amino acids, is highly conserved.ConclusionsThe Spatial gene generates at least five alternative spliced variants: three short isoforms (Spatial-alpha, -beta and -gamma) highly expressed in the thymus and two long isoforms (Spatial-delta and -epsilon) highly expressed in the testis. These alternative spliced variants could have a tissue specific function.
| S-EPMC481062 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Here we show for the first time that HtrA3 is a mitochondrial stress-response factor that promotes cytotoxicity to etoposide and cisplatin in lung cancer cell lines. Exogenous expression of wild type HtrA3 domain variants significantly attenuated cell survival with etoposide and cisplatin treatment in lung cancer cell lines H157 and A549 compared with expression of protease inactive mutants (S305A) or vector control. Conversely, HtrA3 suppression promoted cell survival with etoposide and cisplatin treatment in lung cancer cell lines Hop62 and HCC827. Survival was attenuated by re-expression of wild type HtrA3 variants during treatment but not by protease inactive mutants or vector control. HtrA3 also co-fractionated and co-localized with mitochondrial markers with both endogenous and exogenous expression in normal lung and lung cancer cell lines but was translocated from mitochondria following etoposide treatment. Moreover, HtrA3 translocation from mitochondria correlated with an increase in cell death that was attenuated by either HtrA3 suppression or Bcl-2 overexpression. Taken together, these results suggest that HtrA3 may be a previously uncharacterized mitochondrial cell death effector whose serine protease function may be crucial to modulating etoposide- and cisplatin-induced cytotoxicity in lung cancer cell lines.
| S-EPMC2852939 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BACKGROUND: The Specificity proteins (Sp) are a family of transcription factors that have three highly conserved zinc-fingers located towards the carboxy-terminal that bind GC-boxes and assist in the initiation of gene transcription. Human Sp1-7 genes have been characterized. Recently, the phenotype of Sp8 null mice has been described, being tailless and having severe truncation of both fore and hind limbs. They also have malformed brains with defective closure of the anterior and posterior neuropore during brain development. RESULTS: The human Sp8 gene is a three-exon gene that maps to 7p21.3, close to the related Sp4 gene. From an osteosarcoma cell line we cloned two transcript variants that use two different first exons and have a common second exon. One clone encodes a 508-residue protein, Sp8L (isoform 1) and the other a shorter 490-residue protein, Sp8S (isoform 2). These two isoforms are conserved being found also in mice and zebrafish. Analysis of the Sp8L protein sequence reveals an amino-terminal hydrophobic Sp-motif that is disrupted in Sp8S, a buttonhead box and three C2H2 zinc-fingers. Sp8 mRNA expression was detected in a wide range of tissues at a low level, with the highest levels being found in brain. Treatment of the murine pluripotent cell line C3H10T1/2 with 100 ng/mL BMP-2 induced Sp8 mRNA after 24 hours. CONCLUSIONS: There is conservation of the two Sp8 protein isoforms between primates, rodents and fish, suggesting that the isoforms have differing roles in gene regulation. Sp8 may play a role in chondrogenic/osteoblastic differentiation in addition to its role in brain and limb development.
| S-EPMC534095 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Antibodies to the solute carrier protein, CTL2/SLC44A2, cause hearing loss in animals, are frequently found in autoimmune hearing loss patients, and are implicated in transfusion-related acute lung injury. We cloned a novel CTL2/SLC44A2 isoform (CTL2 P1) from inner ear and identified an alternate upstream promoter and exon 1a encoding a protein of 704 amino acids which differs in the first 10-12 amino acids from the known exon 1b isoform (CTL2 P2; 706 amino acids). The expression of these CTL2/SLC44A2 isoforms, their posttranslational modifications in tissues and their localization in HEK293 cells expressing rHuCTL2/SLC44A2 were assessed. P1 and P2 isoforms with differing glycosylation are variably expressed in cochlea, tongue, heart, colon, lung, kidney, liver and spleen suggesting tissue specific differences that may influence function in each tissue. Because antibodies to CTL2/SLC44A2 have serious pathologic consequences, it is important to understand its distribution and modifications. Heterologous expression in X. laevis oocytes shows that while human CTL2-P1 does not transport choline, human CTL2-P2 exhibits detectable choline transport activity.
| S-EPMC2975550 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, and its recurrence rate after complete resection is high, owing to local or distant metastases. Low expression of high temperature requirement A3 (HTRA3) has been reported to promote tumorigenesis, diminish the effects of anti-tumor treatments, and correlate with a malignant phenotype. To assess the involvement of HTRA3 in the prognosis of postoperative NSCLC, we obtained tumors from 78 patients who had undergone complete surgical resection, and immunohistochemically examined them for HTRA3 expression. HTRA3 was significantly down-regulated in lung cancer tissues compared with normal lung tissues, and only six tumor cases(7.7%) exhibited relatively high levels of HTRA3 (P < 0.001). Notably, high-HTRA3 patients were at significantly lower risk of postoperative recurrence than low-HTRA3 or HTRA3-negative patients (0% versus 31.2% and 35.0%; P = 0.044, 0.029, respectively). High expression of HTRA3 also independently indicated longer disease-free survival in Cox regression analysis (hazard ratio 0.39, 95%CI 0.16-0.95, P = 0.038). Ectopic expression of the long isoform of HTRA3 attenuated the invasion of an NSCLC cell line in a Transwell assay, while knockdown of HTRA3 had the converse effect. Thus, HTRA3 suppresses tumor cell invasiveness and may serve as a prognostic biomarker for postoperative recurrence or survival in NSCLC.
| S-EPMC5130039 | biostudies-literature
Project description:HtrA serine peptidase 2 (HtrA2), also named Omi, is a pro-apoptotic protein that exhibits dramatic changes in expression levels in a variety of disorders, including ischemia/reperfusion injury, cancer, and neurodegeneration. In our study, Omi/HtrA2 protein levels were high in the heart, brain, kidney and liver, with elevated heart/brain expression in aging mice. A similar expression pattern was observed at the mRNA level, which suggests that the regulation of Omi/HtrA2 is predominately transcriptional. Promoter binding by transcription factors is the main influencing factor of transcription, and to identify specific promoter elements that contribute to the differential expression of mouse Omi/HtrA2, we constructed truncated Omi/HtrA2 promoter/luciferase reporter vectors and analyzed their relative luciferase activity; it was greatest in the promoter regions at -1205~-838 bp and -146~+93 bp, with the -838~-649 bp region exhibiting negative regulatory activity. Bioinformatics analysis suggested that the Omi/HtrA2 gene promoter contains a CpG island at -709~+37 bp, and eight heat shock transcription factor 1 (HSF1) sites, two Sp1 transcription factor (SP1)sites, one activator protein (AP) site, seven p53 sites, and four YY1 transcription factor(YY1) sites were predicted in the core areas. Furthermore, we found that p53 and HSF1 specifically binds to the Omi/HtrA2 promoter using chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis. These results provide a foundation for understanding Omi/HtrA2 regulatory mechanisms, which could further understanding of HtrA-associated diseases.
| S-EPMC4730360 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Sequence comparison has become an essential tool in bioinformatics, because highly homologous sequences usually imply significant functional or structural similarity. Traditional sequence analysis techniques are based on preprocessing and alignment, which facilitate measuring and quantitative characterization of genetic differences, variability and complexity. However, recent developments of next generation and whole genome sequencing technologies give rise to new challenges that are related to measuring similarity and capturing rearrangements of large segments contained in the genome. This work is devoted to illustrating different methods recently introduced for quantifying sequence distances and variability. Most of the alignment-free methods rely on counting words, which are small contiguous fragments of the genome. Our approach considers the locations of nucleotides in the sequences and relies more on appropriate statistical distributions. The results of this technique for comparing sequences, by extracting information and comparing matching fidelity and location regularization information, are very encouraging, specifically to classify mutation sequences.
| S-EPMC5361063 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundIn mammals, L-threonine is an indispensable amino acid. The conversion of L-threonine to glycine occurs through a two-step biochemical pathway involving the enzymes L-threonine 3-dehydrogenase and 2-amino-3-ketobutyrate coenzyme A ligase. The L-threonine 3-dehydrogenase enzyme has been purified and characterised, but the L-threonine 3-dehydrogenase gene has not previously been identified in mammals.ResultsTranscripts for L-threonine 3-dehydrogenase from both the mouse and pig are reported. The ORFs of both L-threonine dehydrogenase cDNAs encode proteins of 373 residues (41.5 kDa) and they share 80% identity. The mouse gene is located on chromosome 14, band C. The amino-terminal regions of these proteins have characteristics of a mitochondrial targeting sequence and are related to the UDP-galactose 4-epimerases, with both enzyme families having an amino-terminal NAD+ binding domain. That these cDNAs encode threonine dehydrogenases was shown, previously, by tiling 13 tryptic peptide sequences, obtained from purified L-threonine dehydrogenase isolated from porcine liver mitochondria, on to the pig ORF. These eukaryotic L-threonine dehydrogenases also have significant similarity with the prokaryote L-threonine dehydrogenase amino-terminus peptide sequence of the bacterium, Clostridium sticklandii. In murine tissues, the expression of both L-threonine dehydrogenase and 2-amino-3-ketobutyrate coenzyme A ligase mRNAs were highest in the liver and were also present in brain, heart, kidney, liver, lung, skeletal muscle, spleen and testis.ConclusionsThe first cloning of transcripts for L-threonine dehydrogenase from eukaryotic organisms are reported. However, they do not have any significant sequence homology to the well-characterised Escherichia coli L-threonine dehydrogenase.
| S-EPMC117216 | biostudies-literature
Project description:HtrA2(Omi), belonging to the high-temperature requirement A (HtrA) family of stress proteins, is involved in the maintenance of mitochondrial homeostasis and in the stimulation of apoptosis, as well as in cancer and neurodegenerative disorders. The protein comprises a serine protease domain and a postsynaptic density of 95 kDa, disk large, and zonula occludens 1 (PDZ) regulatory domain and functions both as a protease and a chaperone. Based on the crystal structure of the HtrA2 inactive trimer, it has been proposed that PDZ domains restrict substrate access to the protease domain and that during protease activation there is a significant conformational change at the PDZ-protease interface, which removes the inhibitory effect of PDZ from the active site. The crystal structure of the HtrA2 active form is not available yet. HtrA2 activity markedly increases with temperature. To understand the molecular basis of this increase in activity, we monitored the temperature-induced structural changes using a set of single-Trp HtrA2 mutants with Trps located at the PDZ-protease interface. The accessibility of each Trp to aqueous medium was assessed by fluorescence quenching, and these results, in combination with mean fluorescence lifetimes and wavelength emission maxima, indicate that upon an increase in temperature the HtrA2 structure relaxes, the PDZ-protease interface becomes more exposed to the solvent, and significant conformational changes involving both domains occur at and above 30 °C. This conclusion correlates well with temperature-dependent changes of HtrA2 proteolytic activity and the effect of amino acid substitutions (V226K and R432L) located at the domain interface, on HtrA2 activity. Our results experimentally support the model of HtrA2 activation and provide an insight into the mechanism of temperature-induced changes in HtrA2 structure.
| S-EPMC3508124 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The rat glutathione S-transferase-A3-subunit (GSTA3) gene is a member of the class Alpha GSTs, which we have previously reported to be overexpressed in anti-cancer-drug-resistant cells. In this study, we report the isolation and characterization of the entire rat GSTA3 (rGST Yc1) subunit gene. The rat GSTA3 subunit gene is approximately 15 kb in length and consists of seven exons interrupted by introns of different lengths. Exon 1, with a length of 219 bp, contains only the 5'-untranslated region of the gene. Each exon-intron splicing junction exhibited the consensus sequence for a mammalian splice site. The transcription start site and exon 1 of rat GSTA3 were characterized by a combination of primer extension and rapid amplification of the cDNA ends. Position +1 was identified 219 bp upstream of the first exon-intron splicing junction. The proximal promoter region of the rat GSTA3 subunit gene does not contain typical TATA or CAAT boxes. A computer-based search for potential transcription-factor binding sites revealed the existence of a number of motifs such as anti-oxidant-responsive element, ras-response element, activator protein-1, nuclear factor-kappaB, cAMP-response-element-binding protein, Barbie box and E box. The functional activity of the regulatory region of the rat GSTA3 subunit gene was shown by its ability to drive the expression of a chloramphenicol acetyltransferase reporter gene in rat mammary carcinoma cells, and its activity was greater in melphalan-resistant cells known to have transcriptional activation of this gene by previous studies. The structure of the gene, with a large intron upstream of the translation-initiation site, may explain why the isolation of this promoter has been so elusive. This information will provide the opportunity to examine the involvement of the rat GSTA3 subunit gene in drug resistance and carcinogenesis.
| S-EPMC1220205 | biostudies-other