Pispa J, Palmén S, Holmberg CI, Jäntti J. C. elegans dss-1 is functionally conserved and required for oogenesis and larval growth.
BMC DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY 2008;
8:51. [PMID:
18471277 PMCID:
PMC2409312 DOI:
10.1186/1471-213x-8-51]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 30] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/18/2007] [Accepted: 05/09/2008] [Indexed: 11/10/2022]
Abstract
Background
Dss1 (or Rpn15) is a recently identified subunit of the 26S proteasome regulatory particle. In addition to its function in the protein degradation machinery, it has been linked to BRCA2 (breast cancer susceptibility gene 2 product) and homologous DNA recombination, mRNA export, and exocytosis. While the fungal orthologues of Dss1 are not essential for viability, the significance of Dss1 in metazoans has remained unknown due to a lack of knockout animal models.
Results
In the current study deletion of dss-1 was studied in Caenorhabditis elegans with a dss-1 loss-of-function mutant and dss-1 directed RNAi. The analysis revealed an essential role for dss-1 in oogenesis. In addition, dss-1 RNAi caused embryonic lethality and larval arrest, presumably due to loss of the dss-1 mRNA maternal contribution. DSS-1::GFP fusion protein localised primarily in the nucleus. No apparent effect on proteasome function was found in dss-1 RNAi treated worms. However, expression of the C. elegans dss-1 in yeast cells deleted for its orthologue SEM1 rescued their temperature-sensitive growth phenotype, and partially rescued the accumulation of polyubiquitinated proteins in these cells.
Conclusion
The first knockout animal model for the gene encoding the proteasome subunit DSS-1/Rpn15/Sem1 is characterised in this study. In contrast to unicellular eukaryotes, the C. elegans dss-1 encodes an essential protein, which is required for embryogenesis, larval growth, and oogenesis, and which is functionally conserved with its yeast and human homologues.
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