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Vol. 19, Issue 11, 4675-4686, November 2008
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Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710
Submitted July 1, 2008;
Revised August 19, 2008;
Accepted August 21, 2008
Monitoring Editor: Mark J. Solomon
| ABSTRACT |
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| INTRODUCTION |
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Yeast cells growing in the wild are subject to frequent changes in their environment due to the weather and other organisms. Many environmental changes trigger stress responses that include actin cytoskeleton depolarization, temporarily halting bud growth. In these circumstances, the morphogenesis checkpoint delays mitosis until cells have successfully constructed a bud (Lew, 2003
). The mitotic delay requires at least two pathways: one that inhibits the Cdc25-family phosphatase Mih1p (Harrison et al., 2001
) and one that blocks degradation of the Wee1 family kinase Swe1p (Sia et al., 1998
).
Degradation of Swe1p has been studied in some detail, and requires the assembly of a cytoskeletal structure composed of septin filaments at the mother-bud neck (Keaton and Lew, 2006
; Weirich et al., 2008
). The checkpoint kinase Hsl1p is localized to this structure (Barral et al., 1999
; Longtine et al., 2000
) and recruits the conserved Swe1p-interacting protein Hsl7p to that site (Shulewitz et al., 1999
; Longtine et al., 2000
). Hsl7p in turn tethers Swe1p to the mother-bud neck (Longtine et al., 2000
), where it is phosphorylated by the Polo family kinase Cdc5p (Sakchaisri et al., 2004
). The mechanism whereby Cdc5p-phosphorylated Swe1p is targeted for degradation remains unknown.
Regulation of Swe1p degradation by stresses could occur at many points in the pathway described above, but recent work has focused attention on Hsl1p. Hsl1p kinase activity is required for effective Hsl7p recruitment and Swe1p degradation, and several checkpoint-inducing conditions (such as delaying bud emergence or disrupting the septin structure) appear to inactivate Hsl1p (Barral et al., 1999
; Theesfeld et al., 2003
). Moreover, osmotic shock (which also triggers Swe1p stabilization; Sia et al., 1998
) is thought to act through phosphorylation of Hsl1p by the osmostress mitogen-activated kinase Hog1p (Clotet et al., 2006
).
Recent work suggested a mechanistic basis for Hsl1p regulation by septins. A domain (residues 987-1100) located in the large C-terminal noncatalytic region was found to bind both to the Hsl1p kinase domain (residues 1–450) and to septins (Hanrahan and Snyder, 2003
). It was proposed that septin binding relieved autoinhibition by this domain, unleashing Hsl1p kinase activity (Hanrahan and Snyder, 2003
). Although attractive, this model does not explain why only an assembled septin structure, and not free septin complexes, can activate Hsl1p. Moreover, even after a ring of septins forms at the cell cortex and Hsl1p is localized to that ring, Hsl1p remains inactive if bud formation is delayed (Theesfeld et al., 2003
). Thus, important aspects of Hsl1p regulation remain to be elucidated.
In this article, we report the results of a genetic screen to identify factors important for Swe1p degradation. We identified the kinase Elm1p, which (like Hsl1p) is localized to the mother-bud neck. Our results suggest that Elm1p phosphorylates Hsl1p at Thr273, activating Hsl1p to promote Swe1p degradation.
| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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ns; Richardson et al., 1989
9 (Longtine et al., 1998a
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An integrating TRP1 plasmid containing full-length Hsl1p-13myc expressed from the HSL1 promoter (587 base pairs upstream of the ORF) and followed by ADH1 terminator sequences from the pFA6 plasmids (Longtine et al., 1998b
), with the sequence CGGATCCCCGGGTTAATTAAC (BamHI and PacI sites underlined) encoding Arg Ile ProGly Leu Ile Asn between the Hsl1p and 13myc coding sequences, was assembled by cloning and gap repair from fragments of pNE30 (Edgington et al., 1999
) and HSL1–13myc::kanr (Longtine et al., 2000
). The resulting plasmid, pDLB2548, contains those sequences inserted between the PstI and SacI sites in pRS304 (Sikorski and Hieter, 1989
), with all intervening polylinker sites absent. Digestion at the unique BstXI site was used to target integration at TRP1.
The Hsl1p T273A and T273E mutants change the T273 ACT codon to TCT (T273A) or GAG (T273E: this mutant also has a silent substitution for diagnostic purposes changing codon L271 from TTA to TTG to destroy a DraI site). The Hsl1p K110R mutant was previously described (Theesfeld et al., 2003
). The Hsl1p N244A mutant changes the N244 AAT codon to GCT. The Hsl1p D239A mutant changes the D239 GAT codon to GCA. The Hsl1p
987–1100 mutant replaces the coding sequences for residues 987–1100 with the sequence CGGATCTGG, encoding Arg Ile Trp. All mutations were introduced into pDLB2548, confirmed by sequencing, and integrated as described above.
To express glutathione S-transferase (GST)-Hsl7p in E. coli, the HSL7 ORF was cloned into the EcoRI site of pGEX-KG (GE Healthcare Life Sciences, Piscataway, NJ), generating pDLB2211.
To express GST-fusions with pieces of HSL1, we first introduced the GAL1 promoter (EcoRI-BamHI fragment) into YIplac204 and YIplac128 (Gietz and Sugino, 1988
) and used linkers to change the remaining polylinker to AAAATGGTCGACACCATGGCGCATATGGAGCTC (start codon bold, SacI and SacI sites underlined), yielding pDLB1473 (TRP1) and pDLB1474 (LEU2). Then GST was cloned in from pGEX as a SalI-SacI fragment, yielding pDLB2492 (TRP1) and pDLB2493 (LEU2). Then a PCR product encoding HSL1987–1100 flanked by BamHI and SacI sites was cloned in, fusing GST to HSL1987–1100 via the sequence CTGGTTCCGCGTGGATCC (BamHI underlined) encoding Leu ProLeu Arg Gly Ser (from pGEX). This yielded integrating LEU2 (pDLB2502) and TRP1 (pDLB2506) GAL1-GST-HSL1987–1100 plasmids. Integration was targeted to the marker gene by digestion at the unique BstXI (TRP1) or BstEII (LEU2) sites to express GST-Hsl1p987–1100. To express GST-Hsl1p987–1518, the same plasmids were targeted to integrate at HSL1 by digestion at the unique BsaBI site. Integration in this manner results in a truncated HSL1 (residues 1–1100 followed by a stop codon) followed by GAL1-GST-HSL1987–1518.
Media, Growth, and Cell Cycle Synchrony Procedures
Yeast strains were grown in YEPD (1% yeast extract 2% Bacto Peptone, 2% dextrose, 0.012% adenine, and 0.01% uracil) or in synthetic dextrose complete media lacking relevant amino acids at 30°C unless otherwise noted. Bacterial strains were grown in Difco LB broth (BD Biosciences, San Jose, CA) supplemented with 50 µg/ml ampicillin at 37°C, with the exception of those bacteria used to produce recombinant proteins, which were grown at 18°C.
For galactose inductions, yeast were grown at 24°C in YEPS (as YEPD but with 2% sucrose and 0.05% dextrose), galactose was added to a final concentration of 2%, and cells were collected 20 h later.
For cell cycle synchrony analyses, cells were grown to exponential phase (
5 x 106 cells/ml) and arrested in G1 by incubation with 40 ng/ml
-factor for 3 h at 30°C. Cells were released from the arrest by harvesting and resuspension in fresh YEPD.
Screen for mih1
Synthetic Lethal Mutants
mih1
ade1 ade3 cells (DLY6940) harboring the CEN-MIH1-ADE3-URA3 plasmid pDLB2064 were grown in media lacking uracil to a density of 2 x 107 cells/ml, diluted in water, and plated on YEPD at 5000 cells/plate. Plates were subjected to UV irradiation for 31 s (90% kill) and then allowed to grow in the dark for 4 d at 30°C. Nonsectoring (n = 350; all red) colonies were picked and checked by restreaking, and 20 confirmed mutants were frozen.
To identify the mutant lesion, mutants were transformed with a TRP1-marked genomic library (see below), grown for 4 d at 30°C, and replica plated onto –Trp plates containing 5-fluoro-orotic Acid (5-FOA; Toronto Research Chemicals, Toronto, ON, Canada), which kills cells containing the original URA3 plasmid. Viable colonies should therefore contain library plasmids with either MIH1 or the genes that gave rise to synthetic lethality with mih1
. Plasmids were retransformed into the mutant strains to test complementation of the nonsectoring and 5-FOA–sensitive phenotypes, and the inserts in non-MIH1 complementing plasmids were sequenced. ELM1 and NDD1 plasmids complemented not only the lethality but also the morphology defects of their respective mutants.
To generate the genomic library, 100 µg of genomic DNA from DLY1 was partially digested with 30 U of Sau3A (New England Biolabs, Beverly, MA) for 4 min and separated on a 1% agarose gel, and 6–10-kb fragments were purified and ligated into the BamHI site of YCplac22 (Gietz and Sugino, 1988
). The ligation reaction was transformed into ElectroMAX DH10B electrocompetent cells (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA) and 20 transformations were plated on separate 140-mm Petri plates. After overnight growth, each plate's transformants were inoculated into 200 ml of media and grown for 2 h at 37°C. Plasmid DNA was extracted using Rapid Plasmid Maxiprep System (Marligen, Ijamsville, MD). Ten independent transformants had inserts >4 kb.
Microscopy and Immunofluorescence
For analysis of cell morphology and DNA staining, cells were fixed in 70% ethanol for >1 h, resuspended in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) containing 0.2 µg/ml 4–6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (Sigma, St. Louis, MO), and sonicated. The cells were then resuspended in a drop of mounting medium (90% glycerol in PBS 9.2 mM p-phenylenediamine; Sigma), and stored at –80°C.
For immunofluorescence analysis, cells were fixed in 4.1% formaldehyde for 1 h (to visualize Hsl7p-HA) or 1.5 h (to visualize Hsl1p-13myc) at room temperature, then washed in solution B (0.1 M KPO4, pH 7.5, 1.2 M sorbitol), and treated with 10 µl lyticase (Sigma) and 143 mM β-mercaptoethanol (Sigma) for 10–15 min to digest the cell wall. Spheroplasts were washed twice in PBS and applied to precleaned 10-well microscope slides (Polysciences, Warrington, PA) coated with 0.1% polyethylenimine (Sigma). After they settled, the wells were washed once with TBS containing 5% goat serum (Invitrogen) and 0.1% Tween-20 (Bio-Rad, Richmond, CA), and incubated with 1:200 mouse anti-myc 9E10 (Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Santa Cruz, CA), 1:200 mouse anti-HA 12CA5 (Roche), or rabbit anti-Cdc11 sc7170 (Santa Cruz Biotechnology) for 1 h. The wells were washed 20 times and incubated with 1:200 goat anti-mouse Alexafluor 488 or goat anti-rabbit Alexafluor 568 (Molecular Probes, Eugene, OR) for another hour. After another 20 washes, 2 µl of mounting media was added to each well, and a coverslip was gently deposited.
For DIC imaging, cells were fixed in 70% ethanol, washed with PBS, and resuspended in mounting medium. For imaging Cdc3p-GFP, cells were fixed in 2% paraformaldehyde (Sigma) for 10 min at room temperature, washed once with solution B and once with PBS, and resuspended in mounting medium.
Cells were examined on a Zeiss Axioimager (Thornwood, NY) and photographed with a Hamamatsu Orca ER monochrome cooled-CCD camera (Bridgewater, NJ). Images were viewed using MetaMorph software (Universal Imaging, West Chester, PA).
Biochemical Procedures
Yeast cell lysis was performed by the TCA method (Keaton 2008
) for Western blotting or the NP40 method (Bose et al., 2001
) for immunoprecipitation. Samples were subjected to PAGE using 6% low-bis polyacrylamide (Barral et al., 1999
) to better resolve Hsl1p-13myc for Western blotting or 8% polyacrylamide gels in all other cases.
For Western blotting, proteins were transferred to nitrocellulose membranes (Pall Life Sciences, Ann Arbor, MI), blocked with PBS containing 0.1% Tween 20 (PBST) and 3% nonfat dry milk for 1 h, and then probed with 1:1000 mouse anti-myc 9E10 (Santa Cruz Biotechnology), 1:1000 mouse anti-HA 12CA5 (Roche), 1:1000 mouse anti-GST (Santa Cruz Biotechnology), or 1:25,000 rabbit anti-Cdc11 (Santa Cruz Biotechnology) for 1 h, and washed five times in PBST. Blots were then probed with 1:7500 goat anti-mouse IRdye800 (Rockland Biosciences, Gilbertsville, PA) or anti-rabbit AlexaFluor680 (Molecular Probes) for 1 h in TBST with 3% milk and 0.01% SDS, washed as above, and visualized using an Odyssey scanner (Li-Cor Biosciences, Lincoln, NE).
For Cdc28p and phospho-Cdc28p detection, membranes were blocked in a 1:1 solution containing Odyssey Blocking Buffer (Li-Cor Biosciences) and TBS. The blots were probed with 1:10,000 mouse anti-PSTAIRE (for Cdc28p) and 1:2000 rabbit anti-phospho-tyr15-Cdc2 (for phospho-Cdc28p, Cell Signaling Technology, Beverly, MA), which were diluted in blocking buffer with 0.1% Tween-20 and incubated overnight. The blots were then washed five times in TBST. The same secondary antibodies described above were diluted to the same concentration in blocking buffer with 0.1% Tween-20 and 0.01% SD, incubated for 1 h, and then washed and visualized as above.
For immunoprecipitation, 2 mg of total protein was diluted to 300 µl in NP40 lysis buffer and mixed with 100 µl of a 1:5 suspension of anti-c-Myc-agarose affinity gel beads (Sigma) prewashed three times with NP40 lysis buffer. After 2 h, beads were precipitated, washed as above, and either prepared for PAGE (2/3 of beads) or used for kinase assays (1/3 of beads).
For kinase assays, beads were washed two more times with kinase buffer (10 mM Tris-HCl, pH 7.5, 25 mM MgCl2) and resuspended in 10 µl of kinase buffer containing GST-Hsl7p. Kinase reactions were started by mixing in 10 µl of kinase buffer with 10 µM ATP and 10 µCi of
-32P-ATP (3000 Ci/mmol; Perkin Elmer-Cetus Life Sciences, NEN EasyTides, Boston, MA), incubated at 30°C for 30 min, and stopped with 20 µl of 95°C 2x sample buffer. After PAGE, the radioactive gel was boiled in 5% wt/vol TCA for 15 min, dried for 2 h, developed for 24 h with a Phosphor Screen (Molecular Dynamics, Sunnyvale, CA), scanned using a Storm840 phosphoimager (Amersham Biosciences, Piscataway, NJ), and analyzed using Storm scanning and quantitation software.
To express recombinant GST-Hsl7p, 1L DH10B cells harboring pDLB2211 were grown at 37°C to OD 0.8 and induced with 1 mM IPTG overnight at 18°C. Cells were collected using an Avanti J-25I centrifuge (Beckman Instruments, Fullerton, CA) at 6000 rpm for 30 min at 4°C, washed with 20 ml 0.9% NaCl, and frozen at –80°C. Buffer A (2.5 ml; 2.3 M sucrose, 50 mM Tris-HCl, pH 7.5, and 1 mM EDTA) and 25 µl of 100 mM PMSF were added to the frozen cell pellet. As the cells began to thaw, 10 ml of buffer B (50 mM Tris-HCl, pH 7.5, 10 mM KCl, 1 mM EDTA, and 1 mM DTT), and another 100 µl more of 100 mM PMSF was added together with 4 mg lysozyme. This mixture was kept on ice for 1 h with frequent mixing using a rubber policeman to break up the frozen bacterial pellet. One hundred seventy-five microliters of 10% sodium deoxycholate, 263 µl of 1 M MgCl2, and 25 µl of 5 mg/ml DNaseI (Worthington Biochemical, Lakewood, NJ) were mixed in and allowed to sit on ice for 15 min. The lysate was clarified by centrifugation 12000 rpm for 30 min at 4°C. Glutathione Sepharose (Amersham Biosciences) beads were prewashed two times in 10 ml of buffer C (10 mM HEPES, pH 8.0, 1 mM DTT), added to the lysate, and mixed gently overnight at 4°C. Beads were washed three times in buffer C with 300 mM NaCl and placed in a 20-ml column for elution with 2.5 ml of 5 mM glutathione, pH 8 (Sigma), and mixed gently at 4°C for 1 h. Five 0.5-ml fractions were collected and GST-Hsl7p levels were determined by PAGE and Coomassie blue staining. Fractions with pure GST-Hsl7p were pooled and dialyzed against kinase reaction buffer (10 mM Tris-HCl, pH 7.5, and 25 mM MgCl2).
| RESULTS |
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or hsl7
) that inactivate the Swe1p degradation pathway are well tolerated by unstressed cells, because the Mih1p phosphatase remains able to counteract the stabilized Swe1p. However, in the absence of Mih1p, Swe1p stabilization leads to a lethal G2 arrest (McMillan et al., 1999
mih1
mutants were synthetically lethal (Table 2).
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mutants), and a recent study indicated that it does so (at least in part) by phosphorylating and activating the septin-organizing kinase Gin4p (Bouquin et al., 2000
Although plausible, the above hypothesis does not explain why we did not isolate any mutations in other septin-organizing genes in our screen. To ask whether such mutations would (like elm1 mutants) be synthetically lethal in combination with deletion of MIH1, we performed directed crosses between mih1
strains and strains bearing mutations in the septin-organizing genes GIN4, CLA4, and NAP1 (Longtine et al., 1998a
, 2000
). As shown in Table 2, only elm1
mih1
mutants were synthetic lethal: even gin4
cla4
mih1
triple mutants were recovered at the expected frequencies in our crosses. Because gin4
cla4
mutants display much greater septin disorganization than do elm1
mutants (Gladfelter et al., 2004
), these findings suggest that the mih1
synthetic lethality is not simply a consequence of septin defects, but rather indicates a more specific role for Elm1p in down-regulating Swe1p.
Elm1p-dependent Hsl1p Phosphorylation
In addition to its role in septin organization, Elm1p is one of three upstream kinases for the yeast AMPK homolog Snf1p (Sutherland et al., 2003
). Specifically, Elm1p phosphorylates Snf1p at T210 in the kinase activation loop. We noticed that the Snf1p and Hsl1p activation loops are very similar in sequence (see Figure 3A: Hsl1p T273 occupies a position analogous to Snf1 T210), suggesting that Elm1p might similarly phosphorylate Hsl1p. However, we were unsuccessful in demonstrating phosphorylation of kinase-dead Hsl1p by Elm1p in vitro, similar to findings in a recent report from another lab (Asano et al., 2006
). Although this negative result may indicate that Elm1p does not phosphorylate Hsl1p, it was also possible that our in vitro conditions lacked an important factor (e.g., the septin collar) and that Elm1p does phosphorylate Hsl1p in vivo.
Previous studies showed that Hsl1p undergoes a heterogeneous mobility shift upon analysis by SDS-PAGE that can be collapsed to a tight band by phosphatase treatment (Barral et al., 1999
; McMillan et al., 1999
). The shift was thought to occur exclusively through autophosphorylation, because kinase-dead Hsl1p did not undergo a shift in the previously used lysis and gel conditions. However, using a TCA precipitation method to better preserve phosphorylation, we found that even kinase-dead Hsl1pK110R undergoes a partial mobility shift, suggesting that Hsl1p can be phosphorylated by upstream kinases (Figure 2A). Because preservation of the full shift-inducing modification required denaturing extraction, we were unable to confirm that the additional shift is phosphatase-collapsible, though it seems very likely to be due to phosphorylation. Similar partial shifts were observed with three distinct kinase-dead alleles that showed only background in vitro autophosphorylating activity (Figure 2, B and C), indicating that the shift is not due to residual Hsl1p activity. The shift was greatly reduced when Hsl1p was expressed in cells lacking organized septins entirely (cdc12-6 cells shifted to 37°C for 1 h; Figure 2A), indicating that phosphorylation by upstream kinases is septin-dependent. Neither Hsl1p nor Hsl1pK110R exhibited the shift when expressed in elm1
mutants (Figure 2D). In cells synchronized by pheromone arrest and release, both wild-type and kinase-dead Hsl1p exhibited mobility shifts at the time of bud emergence (Figure 2E). These results suggest that Hsl1p undergoes an initial Elm1p- and septin-dependent phosphorylation at the time of bud emergence, followed rapidly by more extensive autophosphorylation, consistent with the hypothesis that the initial trans-phosphorylation stimulates Hsl1p activity.
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strains. Although HSL1T273E mih1
cells exhibited a growth rate, cell morphology (Figure 3C), and cell cycle profile (Figure 3D) similar to the HSL1 mih1
controls, the hsl1T273A mih1
cells were markedly larger and more elongated, indicative of a prolonged G2 delay. This phenotype was Swe1p-dependent (Figure 3, C and D). Immunofluorescence microscopy revealed that both Hsl1pT273A and Hsl1pT273E were properly localized to the septin cortex, but only Hsl1pT273E was able to effectively localize Hsl7p to that site (Figure 3E). Thus, the nonphosphorylatable Hsl1pT273A displays reduced ability to recruit Hsl7p and down-regulate Swe1p in vivo. Because the phosphomimic Hsl1pT273E appears as active as wild-type Hsl1p, it seems likely that the reduced Hsl1pT273A function reflects its inability to be phosphorylated, rather than a structural requirement for threonine at that position.
Hsl1p T273 Phosphorylation Stimulates Hsl1p Kinase Activity
Immunoprecipitated Hsl1pT273A displayed reduced autophosphorylation and dramatically reduced Hsl7p phosphorylation, compared with wild-type Hsl1p in vitro (Figure 4A). Surprisingly, Hsl1pT273E was also less active than wild-type Hsl1p in this assay, though considerably more active than Hsl1pT273A (Figure 4A).
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mutants displayed dramatically reduced kinase activity in vitro, comparable to that of Hsl1pT273A (Figure 4B). Strikingly, the reduced activity of Hsl1pT273A and the higher activity of Hsl1pT273E were both unaffected by deletion of ELM1 (Figure 4B). These findings suggest that phosphorylation of Hsl1p T273 stimulates Hsl1p kinase activity and that T273 phosphorylation is Elm1p-dependent.
Data presented above showed that a mobility shift indicative of phosphorylation of Hsl1p by upstream kinases in vivo depends on Elm1p. We found that the mobility shift was partly restored in elm1
mutants expressing Hsl1pT273E (Figure 4C). The simplest hypothesis that explains all of these observations is that Elm1p both phosphorylates Hsl1p at T273 and improves septin organization. Single defects in either Hsl1p phosphorylation (as in the ELM1 hsl1T273A mutant; Figure 3A) or septin organization (as in the elm1
HSL1T273E mutant; Figure 4C) do not abrogate Hsl1p autophosphorylation, but the combined deficit (as in elm1
HSL1 cells) precludes autophosphorylation.
Phosphomimic Hsl1pT273E Is Able to Rescue the elm1
mih1
Synthetic Lethality
If phosphorylation of Hsl1p at T273 accounts for Elm1p's special role (beyond helping to organize septins) in the Swe1p degradation pathway, then a phosphomimic Hsl1pT273E should bypass this defect and allow elm1
mih1
mutants to proliferate. To test this prediction, we generated an elm1
mih1
strain that was kept alive by a URA3-marked plasmid expressing ELM1. The presence of the plasmid makes cells sensitive to 5-FOA, which is converted to a toxic product by Ura3p (Boeke et al., 1987
). Loss of the plasmid makes cells resistant to 5-FOA, but leads to G2 arrest of this strain, so that cells cannot proliferate on 5-FOA–containing plates. However, elm1
mih1
HSL1T273E cells were able to grow without the plasmid (Figure 5A), indicating that Swe1p down-regulation proceeds without Elm1p when Hsl1p is pseudophosphorylated at T273. To a lesser degree, the elm1
mih1
growth defect was also suppressed by the HSL1M177V allele described by Myers and colleagues (Edgington et al., 1999
; Figure 5A).
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single mutants exhibit a notably elongated cell morphology associated with a Swe1p-dependent G2 delay (Edgington et al., 1999
mutants (Figure 5C), suggesting that the suppression is Elm1p-specific. Moreover, Hsl1pT273A exacerbated the gin4
elongated morphology (Figure 5C), suggesting that Elm1p-dependent Hsl1p T273 phosphorylation occurs to some degree in gin4
mutants.
Comparison of "Activated" Versions of Hsl1p
Our results suggest a pathway for Hsl1p activation via phosphorylation of T273 by Elm1p, and previous work (Hanrahan and Snyder, 2003
) suggested a pathway for Hsl1p activation via septin binding to relieve autoinhibition by the 987–1100 domain. An "activated" Hsl1pT273E could bypass the requirement for Elm1p (Figure 5), whereas an "activated" Hsl1p
987–1100 was reported to bypass the requirement for assembled septins and to prevent Swe1p-mediated bud elongation (Hanrahan and Snyder, 2003
). These findings raise several questions regarding the relationship between these pathways (e.g., might 987-1100 autoinhibition block T273 phosphorylation?) and their contribution to Hsl1p activity in different circumstances (e.g., do they always work together or respond to distinct inputs?). To begin to address these issues, we first compared the capabilities of the activated versions of Hsl1p in assays to determine the degree to which they could bypass Elm1p (Figure 5) and septin (Figure 6) requirements. We found that Hsl1p
987–1100 could not rescue the viability of elm1
mih1
cells (Figure 5A), indicating that deletion of the 987-1100 domain could not compensate for the loss of Elm1p.
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987–1100 were indistinguishable from those containing wild-type Hsl1p: neither form was able to reduce Swe1p-mediated arrest (Figure 6). Thus, it appears that neither "activated" allele can bypass the need for septins in Swe1p down-regulation.
The role of Hsl1p in Swe1p degradation is thought to involve bringing Swe1p and Cdc5p together at the septin cortex (Sakchaisri et al., 2004
). Thus, it seemed possible that even if Hsl1p
987–1100 were to remain active as a kinase after septin disruption, it might be unable to promote Swe1p degradation. Because Hsl1p mobility during SDS-PAGE is (at least in part) dependent on Hsl1p kinase activity, it has been used as a surrogate measure for Hsl1p activity in vivo. After shift of cdc12-6 mutants to 37°C, the phosphorylation-shifted mobility of wild-type Hsl1p collapsed rapidly (Figure 6C). Both Hsl1pT273E and Hsl1p
987–1100 displayed a similarly rapid collapse to the hypophosphorylated form (Figure 6C). Hsl7p also undergoes a mobility shift due to Hsl1p-mediated phosphorylation, and we found that the Hsl7p shift also disappeared after septin temperature shift, regardless of which Hsl1p allele was present (Figure 6C). Thus, Hsl1p
987–1100 does not maintain autophosphorylation, or Hsl7p phosphorylation, or the ability to down-regulate Swe1p after septin disassembly.
Our failure to reproduce a critical result reported for Hsl1p
987–1100 prompted us to reexamine other experiments underlying the hypothesis that 987–1100 is an autoinhibitory domain. One such experiment showed that overexpression of Hsl1p 987–1100 or 987–1518 fragments caused cells to grow elongated buds, which was presumed to reflect trans-inhibition of endogenous Hsl1p (Hanrahan and Snyder, 2003
). We confirmed that overexpression of GST-Hsl1p987–1518 caused cells to develop elongated buds, though we were less successful with GST-Hsl1p987–1100 (Figure 7A). However, because this region also binds to septins (Hanrahan and Snyder, 2003
), it seemed possible that the bud elongation was due to septin perturbation rather than inhibition of endogenous Hsl1p. Indeed, we noted aberrant septin structures (including bud tip staining and diffuse or bar-like neck staining) upon overexpression of GST-Hsl1p987–1518 (Figure 7B). Furthermore, overexpression of GST-Hsl1p987–1518 induced additional bud lengthening even in hsl1
strains (Figure 7C), indicating that it cannot act solely by inhibiting endogenous Hsl1p. Previous work suggested that one role for septins is to cause bulging on the bud side of the mother-bud neck: without septins, elongated buds emerge as cylinders rather than initially broadening at the base of the bud (Gladfelter et al., 2005
). We found that whereas the buds of hsl1
mutants bulged normally at the base, many of the buds in cells overexpressing GST-Hsl1p987–1518 did not (Figure 7), suggesting that the bud morphology is due to septin perturbation, rather than direct Hsl1p inactivation.
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| DISCUSSION |
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Our screen was for mutations that would be synthetically lethal with mih1
. The Ndd1p transcription factor forms part of the Swi5 factor complex responsible for the induction of a suite of genes whose transcripts peak in abundance during G2/M (Darieva et al., 2003
; Reynolds et al., 2003
). Among the transcripts are CDC5 and the mitotic cyclins CLB1 and CLB2 (Zhu et al., 2000
). Because Swe1p degradation involves sequential phosphorylation by mitotic cyclin/Cdk1 complexes and Cdc5p (Asano et al., 2005
), reduced expression of these transcripts likely explains the identification of ndd1 mutants in our screen. Moreover, even if some Swe1p degradation continues to occur in ndd1 mutants, there would be fewer cyclin/Cdk1 complexes for the remaining Swe1p to inhibit, leading to G2 arrest.
A Novel Role for the Elm1p Kinase
The other novel hit emerging from our screen was Elm1p, a neck-localized kinase that is known to promote assembly of a normal septin collar (Bouquin et al., 2000
). The fact that other septin organization mutants did not emerge from the screen, combined with directed tests showing that even quite severe septin perturbation does not result in synthetic lethality with mih1
, suggested that Elm1p plays an additional role responsible for the phenotype. Based on the previous finding that Elm1p phosphorylates the activation loop threonine in the kinase Snf1p (Sutherland et al., 2003
) and the similarity in activation loop sequence between Snf1p and Hsl1p, we suspected that Elm1p might phosphorylate Hsl1p at that position (T273) to promote Swe1p degradation. We present several lines of evidence suggesting that this hypothesis is correct. Hsl1p isolated from elm1
mutants displayed dramatically reduced phosphorylation and in vitro kinase activity compared with Hsl1p from wild-type cells. Mutation of T273 to A severely reduced Hsl1p kinase activity and function and rendered the activity insensitive to the presence or absence of Elm1p, and most strikingly, mutation of Hsl1p T273 to E (to mimic the phosphorylated state) was able to bypass the requirement for Elm1p to promote Hsl1p phosphorylation, kinase activity, and function, rescuing the elm1
mih1
synthetic lethality.
On the other hand, we were unable to demonstrate direct phosphorylation of Hsl1p by Elm1p in vitro. A similar result was reported by others (Asano et al., 2006
). It is therefore possible that Elm1p promotes Hsl1p T273 phosphorylation indirectly via an intermediary kinase. An obvious candidate is Gin4p, which is activated by Elm1p and localized to the neck (Longtine et al., 1998a
; Asano et al., 2006
). However, whereas the phosphomimic Hsl1pT273E effectively suppressed the elm1
elongated bud phenotype, it was not able to suppress the gin4
elongated bud phenotype, arguing against this hypothesis. We currently favor the hypothesis that Elm1p directly phosphorylates Hsl1p at T273 in the context of the yeast bud neck, but that our in vitro assay is inadequate to recapitulate this event. Consistent with the view that neck localization enables Hsl1p phosphorylation by Elm1p, a previous study found that a delocalized truncated form of Elm1p was still competent to phosphorylate Snf1p but was unable to suppress bud elongation in vivo (Rubenstein et al., 2006
). In summary, our findings indicate that full Hsl1p activation involves phosphorylation of T273 by an upstream kinase, most likely Elm1p.
Hsl1p and Septin Roles in Swe1p Degradation
In a previous study it was suggested that residues 987–1100 of Hsl1p constitute an autoinhibitory domain whose inhibition of the Hsl1p kinase domain is relieved upon binding of septins (Hanrahan and Snyder, 2003
). Key support for that model came from the finding that a "constitutively active" Hsl1p
987–1100 was able to suppress the Swe1p-dependent bud elongation after shift of septin mutants to restrictive temperature (Hanrahan and Snyder, 2003
). This finding implied that the only role of septins in promoting Swe1p degradation is to activate Hsl1p. However, as Hsl1p is thought to function by targeting Swe1p and Cdc5p to the septins, it is not obvious how even a constitutively active Hsl1p could bypass the requirement for assembled septins in Swe1p degradation. We reexamined the issue and were unable to reproduce the key finding from the previous study. In a variety of assays, Hsl1p
987–1100 behaved indistinguishably from wild-type Hsl1p. Moreover, Hsl1pT273E, which behaves as an "activated" version in the elm1
context, was also unable to suppress bud elongation in a septin mutant. Thus, we suggest that septins are important to provide a scaffold upon which Swe1p can be targeted for degradation and that simply activating Hsl1p cannot bypass that function.
Other support for the Hsl1p autoinhibition hypothesis came from the observation that overexpression of an Hsl1p C-terminal domain led to the development of an elongated bud morphology, which was interpreted as evidence for transinhibition of endogenous Hsl1p kinase (Hanrahan and Snyder, 2003
). However, we showed that unlike deletion of HSL1, overexpression of the Hsl1p C-terminal domain led to septin disorganization and an accompanying alteration in bud morphology. In addition, overexpression of the domain promoted more severe bud elongation even in an hsl1
strain. These findings are most consistent with the hypothesis that the domain perturbs septins, rather than directly inhibiting Hsl1p (and indeed two-hybrid data support a septin interaction; Hanrahan and Snyder, 2003
). Together with the other findings mentioned above, this means that the 987–1100 domain autoinhibition hypothesis has no strong in vivo support, though autoinhibition is a common regulatory strategy and the possibility remains that such a mechanism may contribute to Hsl1p regulation.
| Footnotes |
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Address correspondence to: Daniel J. Lew (daniel.lew{at}duke.edu)
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