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Vol. 19, Issue 4, 1798-1813, April 2008
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*Life and Health Sciences Research Institute (ICVS), School of Health Sciences, University of Minho, Campus de Gualtar, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal; and
Centro de Investigação em Ciências da Saúde (CICS), Instituto Superior de Ciências da Saúde–Norte, CESPU, 4585-116 Gandra PRD, Portugal
Submitted July 5, 2007;
Revised December 19, 2007;
Accepted January 9, 2008
Monitoring Editor: Stephen Doxsey
| ABSTRACT |
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| INTRODUCTION |
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Early models for the generation of an inhibitory signal have emphasized the importance of a transient association of a Mad1/Mad2 complex with unattached kinetochores (Howell et al., 2004
). Additionally to the detection of microtubule occupancy, sensing mechanisms have also been proposed to respond to physical tension generated across bioriented sister chromatids (Zhou et al., 2002
; Logarinho et al., 2004
). Ipl1/Aurora B activity appears to provide the link between recognition of missing tension and the signaling of unattached kinetochores. By specifically destabilizing K-MTs of mono-oriented chromosomes, Ipl1/Aurora B generates free kinetochores that maintain an active checkpoint signal (Biggins and Murray, 2001
; Tanaka et al., 2002
). Therefore, the checkpoint-monitoring processes are linked to an error-correcting machinery that detects reduced tension across sister kinetochores syntelically attached to microtubules emanating from a single spindle pole (Ditchfield et al., 2003
; Hauf et al., 2003
).
In addition to the Aurora B kinase, the checkpoint kinases BubR1 and Bub1 have also been recently proposed to act dually, linking K-MT interaction to the SAC signaling. BubR1 mediates stable K-MT interactions (Lampson and Kapoor, 2005
) at the same time that performs a catalytic role at the kinetochore (Sudakin et al., 2001
; Mao et al., 2003
). Similarly, besides its role in the inhibitory phosphorylation of Cdc20 (Chung and Chen, 2003
; Tang et al., 2004a
), Bub1 is also independently required for chromosome segregation (Johnson et al., 2004
; Tang et al., 2004b
; Meraldi and Sorger, 2005
; Vanoosthuyse and Hardwick, 2005
).
Because Bub3 checkpoint protein is required for BubR1 and Bub1 kinetochore localization and forms cell cycle constitutive complexes with both kinases (Taylor et al., 1998
; Brady and Hardwick, 2000
), it is predictable that it might be also involved in the regulation of K-MT interactions. Therefore, we went on investigating this Bub3 function using a combination of RNA interference (RNAi)-mediated gene silencing, functional assays, and high-resolution microscopy to assess K-MT interactions and performing comparative analysis with the SAC proteins Bub1 and BubR1.
| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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Drug Treatments
MG132 (10 µM, Sigma, St. Louis, MO) was used to inhibit the proteasome and ZM447439 (10 µM, kindly provided by Dr. Campbell Wilson, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, Cheshire, United Kingdom) was used to inhibit Aurora kinase activity. Unless otherwise stated, incubation with MG132 or with ZM447439 was for 1 h. To evaluate mitotic arrest, cells were incubated with the reversible microtubule depolymerizing drug nocodazole (1 µM, Sigma) for 16 h. Mitotic index was determined by cell-rounding under phase-contrast microscopy. To analyze the cell's ability to restore the metaphase plate after microtubule depolymerization, control and siRNA-treated cells were first incubated for 1 h with nocodazole, in the presence of MG132, then released into fresh medium containing MG132, and processed for immunofluorescence 30 min later.
Western Blotting
Cells, 106, were collected by centrifugation and resuspended on SDS-sample buffer containing protease inhibitors (Sigma cocktail). Cell extracts were loaded onto a 5–20% acrylamide gradient gel and then transferred to a Hybond enhanced chemiluminescence (ECL) nitrocellulose membrane (Amersham Biosciences, Piscataway, NJ) by semidry blotting (Hoefer, San Francisco, CA). Membrane was blocked in TBST (50 mM Tris, pH 8.0, 150 mM NaCl, 0.05% Tween-20) plus 5% nonfat dried milk and incubated with the primary antibodies diluted in TBST plus 1% nonfat dried milk. After washing, peroxidase-conjugated secondary antibodies were used (1:1500, Vector, Burlingame, CA). All incubations were for 1 h at room temperature. Proteins were detected by ECL and imaged on Kodak biomax light film (Sigma). Signal intensities were quantified using Image J 1.34s software (http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/) and normalized against
-tubulin intensity levels.
Immunofluorescence
Cells were fixed for 20 min in freshly prepared 2% paraformaldehyde (Sigma) in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), permeabilized with 0.5% Triton X-100 in PBS for 5 min, washed in PBS and blocked with 10% FBS. For the cold-stable microtubule experiments, cells were incubated in ice-cold medium during 10 min, before fixation. Primary antibodies used were as follows: mouse anti-Bub3 (1:1000 dilution; BD Transduction Laboratories, Lexington, KY); rabbit anti-Bub1 (1:1000, Abcam, Cambridge, MA); mouse anti-BubR1 (1:600; Chemicon, Temecula, CA); sheep anti-Bub1 and sheep anti-BubR1 (1:1000; gifts from S. Taylor, School of Biological Sciences, University of Manchester, United Kingdom); human anti-CREST (1:2500; gift from E. Bronze-da-Rocha, IBMC, Porto, Portugal); mouse anti-Hec1 (1:500, Abcam); rabbit anti-Spc25 (1:400; gift from T. Stukenberg, Center for Cell Signaling, University of Virginia); mouse anti-histone-phospho-H3 (1:2000; Upstate Biotechnology, Lake Placid, NY); rabbit anti-Aurora B (1:1000; Abcam); rabbit anti-Mad2 FL205 (1:1000; Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Santa Cruz, CA); rabbit anti-Mad2 (1:1000; gift from A. Musacchio, Department of Experimental Oncology, European Institute of Oncology, Milan, Italy); mouse anti-CLIP-170 (1:100; gift from F. Perez, Department of Cell Biology Sciences III, University of Geneva, Switzerland); mouse anti-p150Glued (1:1500, BD Biosciences, San Jose, CA); mouse anti-CENP-E (1:1000; gift from T. Yen, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, PA); mouse anti-
-tubulin clone B-5-1-2 (1:2500; Sigma); and rabbit anti-β-tubulin (1:700; Abcam). Alexa Fluor 488–, 568–, and 647–conjugated secondary antibodies were used at 1:1500 (Molecular Probes, Eugene, OR) and DNA was stained with DAPI (Sigma).
Microscopy Analysis
Most images were acquired using a 60x apochromatic objective on a Nikon TE 2000-U microscope equipped with a DXM1200F digital camera and controlled by Nikon ACT-1 software (Melville, NY). For each image, representative focus planes were shown. Images in Figure 4, A and D, were acquired as Z-stacks with 0.2–0.3-µm spacing using a 100 x 1.35 NA objective on a Olympus BX61 microscope coupled with a DP70 digital camera (Melville, NY). Olympus Cell
software was used for image deconvolution and projection. Images in Figures 3A, 7A, and 8F were acquired as Z-stacks with 0.2–0.3-µm spacing using a 60 x 1.42 NA on an Olympus FluoView FV1000 confocal microscope. Maximal intensity projections of the entire Z-stack are shown, and optical sections show individual kinetochores more clearly (insets).
For quantification of kinetochore-staining intensities, a circular area of
0.6 µm diameter was drawn around each kinetochore. The pixel total brightness within the selected area was then measured using Image J 1.34s software (http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/). Background brightness was determined and subtracted for each measurement. Staining intensities of Bub3, Bub1, and BubR1 in the immunofluorescence and immunoblotting experiments were normalized against CREST and tubulin reference levels, respectively. Interkinetochore distances were determined using the outer kinetochore marker Hec1. Each kinetochore position was recorded as the stained centroid object. Each value was derived by measuring at least 50 kinetochore pairs in five cells.
Quantification of chromosome misalignment in siRNA-depleted cells was as adapted from (Lampson and Kapoor, 2005
; Meraldi and Sorger, 2005
), i.e., chromatids were considered unaligned if their kinetochores were positioned outside the area containing 40% of the central spindle. A total number of n
400 cells from three independent assays were analyzed for each RNAi experiment.
To count kinetochores with attached cold-stable microtubules, CREST staining was used to identify kinetochores in image Z-stacks. An average of 98 kinetochores was counted per cell, with three cells analyzed in each case. Each kinetochore was characterized as attached or unattached depending on whether a microtubule fiber ended at the kinetochore.
| RESULTS |
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Because depletion of checkpoint proteins can cause premature mitotic exit before chromosomes are properly attached to the spindle and aligned, we treated cells with the proteasome inhibitor MG132 in order to prevent anaphase onset and, thereby, to assess the effects of Bub3 depletion on chromosome alignment independently of its effects on mitotic checkpoint activity (Kops et al., 2004
). After exposure to MG132, quantification of mitotic figures revealed a reduced number of prophases and anaphases (Figure 2D), indicating efficacy of the drug (Johnson et al., 2004
). As expected, the number of fully aligned metaphases increased in control cell culture from 48 to 82%, whereas it was still comparatively reduced (57%, p < 0.001) in the Bub3-depleted culture (Figure 2D). Consistently, the number of metaphases with misaligned chromosomes was higher in the Bub3-depleted culture (29 vs. 10% in control, p < 0.001). These results show that the misalignment defect in Bub3-depleted cells is long-standing and not merely due to an accelerated exit from mitosis caused by the checkpoint defect.
We next quantified the extent of chromosome misalignment after exposure to MG132 in Bub3-depleted cells, in comparison to Bub1- and BubR1-depleted cells (Figure 3). Chromosomes were considered misaligned if their kinetochores were positioned outside the 40% central area of the spindle. This analysis showed that 43% of the metaphases had misaligned kinetochores in Bub3-depleted cultures, of which 18, 14, and 11% had 1–2, 3–4, and >4 misaligned chromosomes, respectively (see Figure 6C). Bub1 depletion induced a misalignment phenotype similar to that from Bub3 depletion, with 40% of metaphases with misalignment, whereas 62% of the metaphases in BubR1-depleted cell cultures had misaligned kinetochores, most of them (32%) with >4 misaligned chromosomes (siBubR1 complete in Figure 6C). The data from the quantitative analysis were tested statistically (two-way ANOVA; Supplementary Table 1), and altogether the results indicated that BubR1 depletion leads to extensive misalignment defects, more severe than those induced by Bub3 and Bub1 depletions and that Bub3 depletion phenotype is similar to Bub1.
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First, we assayed for the stability of the K-MT attachments. As kinetochore microtubules (K-fibers) are differentially stable to cooling at 4°C in comparison to nonkinetochore microtubules (Rieder, 1981
), we gave cells a cold shock and checked for the presence of stable microtubules. Although in mock-depleted cells thick K-fibers were clearly attached to each kinetochore (Figure 4A), in Bub3-depleted cells only a few cold-stable K-fibers were present. Accordingly to previous observations (Lampson and Kapoor, 2005
), BubR1-depleted cells also exhibited few thin cold-stable K-fibers, as did Bub1-repressed cells (our present data). Quantification of the kinetochores with cold-stable microtubule fibers attached confirmed that Bub3, Bub1, and BubR1 depletions lead to defective cold-sensitive K-MT attachments, with only 14 ± 3, 17 ± 4, and 4 ± 2% attached kinetochores, respectively, compared with 83 ± 5% in control (Table 1). Statistic analysis of these data further indicated that the defective attachments in Bub3 depletion are similar to those in Bub1 depletion (p > 0.05) but significantly different from those in BubR1 depletion (p < 0.001; Supplementary Table 2).
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Thirdly, as the levels of centromere stretching might reflect the state of microtubule occupancy, we examined kinetochore proteins that become hardly detectable after chromosome attachment to the spindle. Even though Mad2 kinetochore levels were reported to be highly sensitive to microtubule occupancy (Waters et al., 1998
), its use was precluded in our study as Bub3 is required for its kinetochore localization (Supplementary Figure 1). The use of other checkpoint proteins, such as Bub1 and BubR1, was also excluded because their kinetochore localization was reported to be compromised by Bub3 depletion and their sensitivities to attachment and/or absence of tension are still controversial (Pinsky and Biggins, 2005
). Therefore, we alternatively monitored the levels of p150Glued (a subunit of the dynactin complex) and of CLIP-170 (a microtubule "plus-end–tracking" protein) because these proteins are hardly detectable on attached kinetochores and are recruited to human kinetochores independently of checkpoint proteins (King et al., 2000
; Tanenbaum et al., 2005
; Supplementary Figure 2A). We found that the p150Glued fluorescence intensities of unaligned Bub3- and Bub1-depleted kinetochores were reduced to 50 and 33% of control unattached chromosome levels, respectively, indicating attachment to an incomplete complement of microtubules (Figure 4C; Supplementary Figure 2B). As expected, p150Glued levels at the unaligned kinetochores of BubR1-depleted cells were as high as 78% of control levels. Similar results were found for CLIP-170 kinetochore intensities (Supplementary Figure 2, C and D).
Finally, considering the defects depicted above, we examined the ability of K-fibers to restore a metaphase plate after a nocodazole washout (adapted from Tanenbaum et al., 2005
). HeLa cells were treated with nocodazole to depolymerize all microtubules, then released into fresh medium containing MG132, and stained for tubulin and CREST 0 and 30 min later (Figure 4D). Immediately after the release, the spindles were absent in cells treated with the depolymerizing drug, with chromosomes scattered throughout the cell. Thirty minutes after the washout, both control and siRNA-transfected cells had nucleated a new set of microtubules, which organized into a bipolar spindle, indicating that transfection per se or depletion of checkpoint proteins did not interfere with spindle formation. However, with respect to chromosome alignment, we found different results between the siRNA depletions in comparison to control (Figure 4D). Although 59% of the control cells had completely aligned their chromosomes within the 30 min after release, only 31% of the Bub3-depleted cells exhibited full alignment (Figure 4E). The remaining Bub3-depleted cells had several misaligned chromosomes, mostly between 6 and 10 (45% of the cells), consistent with dysfunctional K-MT attachments. In Bub1-depleted cells, we also found only 31% of fully aligned metaphases, with most of the other cells exhibiting 1–15 misaligned chromosomes. BubR1-depleted cells were the least able to recover from the washout, with only 20% of metaphases reaching full alignment, whereas the majority of the bipolarized cells did not form a defined metaphase plate. Such behavior appears in agreement with the proposed inability of these cells to stabilize K-MT attachments (Lampson and Kapoor, 2005
). Hence, we conclude from this assay that chromosome misalignment in Bub3-depleted cells is due to dysfunctional K-MT interaction.
Misalignment Defects in Bub3-depleted Cells Are Not Due to CENP-E, Bub1, and BubR1 Depletion from Kinetochores
We examined whether the misalignment defects found in Bub3-depleted cells could be due to CENP-E mislocalization. CENP-E is a kinesin-like protein known to be required for chromosome congression (Wood et al., 1997
; Yao et al., 1997
). Its recruitment to kinetochores has been reported to depend on checkpoint proteins (Sharp-Baker and Chen, 2001
; Johnson et al., 2004
; Vigneron et al., 2004
), even though others found recruitment to be independent (Lampson and Kapoor, 2005
; Meraldi and Sorger, 2005
). Therefore, we quantified the kinetochore levels of CENP-E in Bub3-, Bub1-, and BubR1-depleted cells (Figure 5). We found that depletion of these proteins affected CENP-E kinetochore localization, but with different extent (Figure 5A). In comparison to CENP-E fluorescence intensities of control prometaphase kinetochores, the CENP-E levels of Bub3-, Bub1-, and BubR1-depleted kinetochores were reduced to 59, 67, and 41%, respectively (Figure 5B). Thus, as significant levels of CENP-E are still present in Bub3-depleted cells, the misalignment defects are unlikely to be due to, or at least are not exclusively due to, a failure in CENP-E recruitment to kinetochores. The same has been proposed for BubR1 and Bub1 (Lampson and Kapoor, 2005
; Meraldi and Sorger, 2005
). Furthermore, the effects of CENP-E RNAi on chromosome misalignment were clearly different from those of Bub3 RNAi. CENP-E–depleted cultures exhibited a higher number of cells with misaligned chromosomes (93%) than Bub3-depleted cultures (53%; Figure 5C), and misaligned chromosomes were typically localized close to the spindle poles (Putkey et al., 2002
). In addition, the number of metaphases with misalignment largely decreased in CENP-E–depleted cultures after an MG132-induced anaphase delay, whereas it remained almost unchanged in Bub3-depleted cultures. This indicates that, in contrast to the defect caused by CENP-E depletion, which can be partially corrected by delaying anaphase onset, the misalignment defect in Bub3-depleted cells is persistent and of a distinct nature (see Discussion).
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Bub3 and Bub1 Depletions Lead to Defective K-MT Attachments That Are Distinct from Those Induced by BubR1 and CENP-E Depletions
As shown above, we observed that Bub3 and Bub1 depletions produce similar misalignment defects, which appear different from those induced by BubR1 and CENP-E depletions. Thus, we went on examine the mode of MT binding by misaligned chromosomes in all these RNAi-depleted cells using high-resolution confocal imaging. For each RNAi-depleted cell, stained with CREST and anti-
-tubulin antibodies, we acquired Z-stacks with 0.2-µm spacing (Figure 7A), and we used 4–8 Z-stacks for maximal intensity projections of individual K-MT attachments of misaligned chromosomes (insets). We found that in Bub3- and Bub1-depleted cells, misaligned chromosomes were frequently bound to microtubules emanating from the same pole. The binding configuration appeared to be lateral (side-on binding to the walls of microtubules) in most of the cases. In contrast, misaligned chromosomes of CENP-E–depleted cells were tightly associated with the spindle poles, consistently to the centrophilic configuration previously reported for CENP-E depletion (Putkey et al., 2002
). Misaligned chromosomes of BubR1-depleted cells were also examined, and we found them to be mostly detached. Interkinetochore distances were measured in all the K-MT attachments analyzed, and it further informed that Bub3- and Bub1-depleted misaligned chromosomes often exhibit intermediate levels of tension, whereas those in CENP-E– and BubR1-depleted cells have low levels of tension (insets in Figure 7A and Figure 4B). We quantified the mode of MT binding by misaligned chromosomes (>50) in each of the RNAi depletions. We classified attachments as polar, side-on, and detached. As side-on attachments exhibited either one or two dots of CREST staining (reflecting different levels of centromere stretching), they were further subdivided accordingly. This quantitative analysis showed that misaligned chromosomes of Bub3- and Bub1-depleted cells were typically attached to microtubules in a side-on configuration, rarely found in CENP-E– and BubR1-depleted cells (Figure 7B). Interestingly, in BubR1-depleted cells, misaligned chromosomes despite detached had kinetochore pairs parallel to the spindle axis, with interkinetochore distances slightly higher than those produced by nocodazole treatment (Figure 4B). This is in agreement with the fact that, rather then impairing MT binding, BubR1 depletion destabilizes K-MT attachments (Lampson and Kapoor, 2005
). Instability does not appear to be the nature of the attachment defect in Bub3- and Bub1-depleted cells, but further analyses will be required to determine exactly the origin of the side-on attachments found in these cells.
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| DISCUSSION |
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Our data established that chromosome misalignment caused by Bub3 depletion is not a secondary consequence of checkpoint inactivation or altered mitotic timing, as misaligned chromosomes persisted even when cells were blocked in mitosis with the proteasome inhibitor MG132. Also, we demonstrated that loss of CENP-E from kinetochores, a kinesin-like motor known to play a key role in chromosome alignment, cannot explain the alignment defects observed in Bub3-depleted cells because 1) significant levels of CENP-E were still detected in Bub3-depleted kinetochores; 2) misaligned chromosomes in CENP-E–depleted cells were tightly associated with a single spindle pole, whereas those in Bub3-depleted cells were localized in between the pole and the equatorial plate; and 3) CENP-E–depleted cells extensively overrode the misalignment phenotype when anaphase was delayed after MG132 treatment. Furthermore, we also showed that Bub1 and BubR1 depletions from kinetochores are unlikely to contribute for the Bub3 phenotype as 1) significant levels of Bub1 were still found in Bub3-depleted kinetochores; 2) even though BubR1 kinetochore localization was abolished after Bub3 depletion, both partial and extensive BubR1 depletions induced misalignment/attachment defects that were very distinct from those in Bub3-depleted cells (see further discussion below); and 3) corepression of Bub3 and Bub1 (or BubR1) produced additive chromosome misalignment phenotype. Thus, like Bub1 and BubR1, Bub3 has a dual function in SAC signaling and in promoting the establishment of correct K-MT attachments.
Besides having helped to assign a specific function for Bub3, the double depletion experiments brought additional important findings. First, Bub3 and Bub1 most probably play redundant roles in the regulation of K-MT attachments. This is not only consistent with previous data from yeast where Bub3 has been identified as a copy suppressor of bub1-1 mutation (Hoyt et al., 1991
), but also explains the dramatic defects found in chromosome alignment after Bub1/Bub3-RNAi. In addition, it explains why defects in Bub1/BubR1 and Bub3/BubR1 RNAis are similar and why they are less severe than in Bub1/Bub3-RNAi. Second, BubR1 function in the stabilization of K-MT attachments might be kinetochore-independent. If that was not so, BubR1 kinetochore delocalization in Bub3-depleted cells should be expected to account for a more dramatic phenotype as end-on attachments would become unstable. Thus, despite delocalized from the Bub3-depleted kinetochores, the soluble cytosolic BubR1 protein might be phosphorylating any other protein which, once modified, acts to stabilize K-MT attachments. Similarly, the role of BubR1 on checkpoint activation was previously suggested to be kinetochore-independent (Morrow et al., 2005
).
Because of the transfection and repression levels variability from experiment to experiment, we do not exclude the possibility that our cellular phenotype might be affected by a remaining pool of the target protein. This is particularly true for kinases as Bub1, where even 95% of repression levels lead to mitotic checkpoint arrest in our study and others (Tang et al., 2004
), whereas <5% remaining Bub1 results in an abrogated checkpoint (Meraldi and Sorger, 2005
). We believe that we minimized the problem of cell heterogeneity due to variability in knockdown levels because 1) we analyzed only RNAi cells in which the target protein was undetectable by immunofluorescence, and 2) our RNAi conditions reproduced the misalignment phenotypes previously reported for BubR1 and Bub1.
MT-binding Defects in Bub3 and Bub1 Depletions Are Distinct from Those in BubR1 Depletion
In this study, we undertook a comparative analysis between the chromosome-to-spindle interaction defects induced by Bub3, Bub1, and BubR1 depletions. We found several lines of evidence suggesting that Bub3 and Bub1 act differently from BubR1 in the regulation of bipolar attachments: 1) the K-MT attachment defects in Bub3- and Bub1-depleted cells were very similar in all the assays used to assess chromosome–spindle interactions, being less severe than in BubR1-depleted cells; 2) the misaligned chromosomes in Bub3- and Bub1-depleted cells appear to bind to the sides rather than the ends of microtubules, whereas they are detached in BubR1-depleted cells; and 3) inhibition of Aurora B kinase activity reverts the attachment defect in BubR1-depleted cells, whereas in Bub3- and Bub1-depleted cells, it has an additive effect on the misalignment phenotype. Thus, our results suggest that Bub3 and Bub1 are required for the establishment of efficient end-on attachments, whereas BubR1 is necessary for their maintenance. In the budding yeast, distinct chromosome segregation roles for the SAC proteins were described, with Bub1 and Bub3 having predominant and cooperative role in the regulation of chromosome segregation (Warren et al., 2002
). We have found corepression of Bub1 and Bub3 to induce the most severe chromosome misalignment phenotype, pointing to a synergistic effect. Considering that siRNA repressions were effective, the most probable explanation is that Bub3 and Bub1 have redundant roles in K-MT interaction, being therefore depletion of either one individually unable to create a dramatic effect. However, considering that even small amounts of proteins could still account for significant function on K-MT interaction, we cannot exclude the possibility that Bub3 and Bub1 may act cooperatively, as in this case corepression would also produce an additive effect on misalignment compared with single repressions.
But what is the nature of the MT-binding defect caused by Bub3 depletion? The high density of microtubules makes it difficult to image misaligned chromosomes in HeLa cells, but our data suggest that chromatids make side-on attachments to microtubules emanating from the same pole. This type of interaction is distinct from that caused by Aurora B inhibition, which is syntelic end-on. Interestingly, we observed the phenotype of simultaneous Bub3 and Aurora B depletion to be additive with respect to single depletions. Similar results were reported for Bub1 (Meraldi et al., 2005
), suggesting possible cooperation of Bub3 and Bub1 in chromosome segregation as proposed for their yeast counterparts. The timing of ScBub1p recruitment to budding yeast kinetochores has also been cited as evidence that it assists in the formation of mature ends-on MT attachments (Gillett et al., 2004
). Together with Mal3/EB1 MT-binding protein, Bub1 might be involved in a specific mode of spindle–kinetochore interaction, such as switching from lateral to end-on attachment (Asakawa et al., 2005
; Tanaka et al., 2005
). We believe our data provide further evidence for the hypothesis that Bub1, and now also Bub3, are involved in this switching.
We do not know whether Bub3 is directly responsible for the K-MT attachments or if it indirectly regulates the activity of a MT-binding protein. Recently, Bub3 was found to be a specific binding partner of cytoplasmic dynein light chain DYNLT3 (Lo et al., 2007
). Depletion or inhibition of kinetochore dynein prevents the rapid poleward motion of attaching kinetochores that results from a successful search-and-capture event (Alexander and Rieder, 1991
; Yang et al., 2007
). In addition, after kinetochores attach to the spindle, kinetochore dynein is required for stabilizing K-fibers, which it probably does by generating tension on the kinetochore, and in its absence, chromosome congression is delayed/disrupted (Cleveland et al., 2003
). It will be important to determine if these dynein-dependent steps are compromised in Bub3-depleted cells.
Understanding how chromosome–microtubule interactions are transduced into signals that can be integrated by the molecular pathway of the SAC has remained a challenge because the discovery of this mitotic surveillance mechanism. Emerging data strongly suggest that the connection relies on the dual function of checkpoint proteins. Checkpoint proteins might regulate different aspects of K-MT interactions, which include distinct kinetochore structural contributions that influence segregation, detection of different types of kinetochore status in the context of checkpoint signaling (attachment vs. tension), or communication to diverse target molecules involved in MT dynamics and attachment-correction mechanisms (Chan et al., 2005
). Given the complexity of the K-MT interactions, together with the importance of ensuring accurate segregation of the genetic material in a dividing cell, it is not surprising that different proteins act redundantly or cooperatively to regulate similar and/or different aspects of such interactions. This may provide a selective advantage to multicellular organisms to increase the fidelity of chromosome segregation, reducing the possibility of aneuploidy.
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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rren (IBMC, Porto, Portugal) for the HeLa cells and transfection suggestions. We thank Drs. E. Bronze-Rocha, A. Musacchio, F. Perez, S. Taylor, T. Stukenberg, and T. Yen for the kindly provided primary antibodies. We thank Dr. Campbell (AstraZeneca, United Kingdom) for the ZM Aurora inhibitor, Drs. A. Almeida and C. Braga (Minho University) for statistical analyses of the data, and Dr. V. Nascimento for technical help. This work was supported by Grant POCTI/BCI/42341/2001 from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) and by Cooperativa de Ensino Superior Politécnico e Universitário (CESPU). T.R. and C.T. had a fellowship from FCT. | Footnotes |
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Address correspondence to: Hassan Bousbaa (hassan.bousbaa{at}iscsn.cespu.pt).
Abbreviations used: APC/C, anaphase-promoting complex/cyclosome; K-MT, kinetochore–microtubule; MCC, mitotic checkpoint complex; RNAi, RNA interference; SAC, spindle assembly checkpoint; siRNA, small interference RNA.
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