Lumen-side topography of the alpha-subunit of the chloroplast cytochrome b-559

A novel ETV6-miR-429-CRKL regulatory circuitry contributes to aggressiveness of hepatocellular carcinoma

BACKGROUND

Tumor metastasis is one of the main causes of the high mortality of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). E-Twenty Six variant gene 6 (ETV6) is a strong transcriptional repressor, associated with the development and progression of tumors. However, the exact role and underlying mechanism of ETV6 in HCC remain unclear.

METHODS

Western blotting, quantitative real-time PCR and immunohistochemistry were used to detect the expression levels of ETV6, CRKL (v-crk sarcoma virus CT10 oncogene homologue (avian)-like) and miR-429 in HCC tissues and cells; Transwell chamber and F-actin cytoskeleton staining assay to examine the effects of ETV6 and CRKL deregulation on the migration, invasion and cytoskeleton of HCC cells; Co-immunoprecipitation assay to determine the interaction between CRKL and ETV6; Chromatin immunoprecipitation assay to investigate the interaction between ETV6 and miR-429.

RESULTS

We established a novel ETV6-miR-429-CRKL regulatory circuitry contributes to HCC metastasis. ETV6 and CRKL were frequently increased, while miR-429 was downregulated in both hepatocarcinoma tissues and hepatocarcinoma cells. Moreover, ETV6 upregulation was positively correlated with CRKL upregulation, and two negative correlations were also established for ETV6 and CRKL upregulation with miR-429 downregulation in both hepatocarcinoma patients' tumorous tissues and hepatocarcinoma cells. Functional investigations revealed that overexpression and knockdown of ETV6 was remarkably effective in promoting and suppressing HCC cell migration, invasion, cytoskeleton F-actin expression and arrangement, whereas, CRKL overexpression exhibited similar effects to the overexpression of ETV6. Mechanistically, ETV6 negatively regulates miR-429 expression by directly binding to the promoter region of miR-429; miR-429 negatively regulates CRKL expression by selectively targeting CRKL-3'-UTR; ETV6 directly binds to CRKL and positively regulates its expression, which in turn CRKL positively regulates ETV6 expression.

CONCLUSIONS

Our data demonstrated that ETV6 promotes migration and invasion of HCC cells by directly binding to promoter region of miR-429 via modulating CRKL expression. The newly identified ETV6-miR-429-CRKL regulatory circuitry contributes to the aggressiveness of HCC, which provides new clues for fundamental research on diagnosis and treatment parameters for HCC.

Light-induced quinone reduction in photosystem II

The photosystem II core complex is the water:plastoquinone oxidoreductase of oxygenic photosynthesis situated in the thylakoid membrane of cyanobacteria, algae and plants. It catalyzes the light-induced transfer of electrons from water to plastoquinone accompanied by the net transport of protons from the cytoplasm (stroma) to the lumen, the production of molecular oxygen and the release of plastoquinol into the membrane phase. In this review, we outline our present knowledge about the "acceptor side" of the photosystem II core complex covering the reaction center with focus on the primary (Q(A)) and secondary (Q(B)) quinones situated around the non-heme iron with bound (bi)carbonate and a comparison with the reaction center of purple bacteria. Related topics addressed are quinone diffusion channels for plastoquinone/plastoquinol exchange, the newly discovered third quinone Q(C), the relevance of lipids, the interactions of quinones with the still enigmatic cytochrome b559 and the role of Q(A) in photoinhibition and photoprotection mechanisms. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Photosystem II.

Structural model of cytochrome b559 in photosystem II based on a mutant with genetically fused subunits

Photosystem II is a reaction center protein complex located in photosynthetic membranes of plants, algae, and cyanobacteria. Using light energy, photosystem II catalyzes the oxidation of water and the reduction of plastoquinone, resulting in the release of molecular oxygen. A key component of photosystem II is cytochrome b559, a membrane-embedded heme protein with an unknown function. The cytochrome is unusual in that a heme links two separate polypeptide subunits, alpha and beta, either as a heterodimer (alphabeta) or as two homodimers (alpha2 and beta2). To determine the structural organization of cytochrome b559 in the membrane, we used site-directed mutagenesis to fuse the coding regions of the two respective genes in the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. In this construction, the C terminus of the alpha subunit (9 kDa) is attached to the N terminus of the beta subunit (5 kDa) to form a 14-kDa alphabeta fusion protein that is predicted to have two membrane-spanning alpha-helices with antiparallel orientations. Cells containing the alphabeta fusion protein grow photoautotrophically and assemble functional photosystem II complexes. Optical spectroscopy shows that the alphabeta fusion protein binds heme and is incorporated into photosystem II. These data support a structural model of cytochrome b559 in which one heme is coordinated to an alpha2 homodimer and a second heme is coordinated to a beta2 homodimer. In this model, each photosystem II complex contains two cytochrome b559 hemes, with the alpha2 heme located near the stromal side of the membrane and the beta2 heme located near the lumenal side.

Topography of the heme prosthetic group of cytochrome b-559 in the photosystem II reaction center

The topography of the heme prosthetic group of cytochrome b-559 of the photosystem II reaction center was determined from measurement of the orientation of its alpha- and beta-polypeptides in thylakoid membranes of spinach chloroplasts and in osmotically disrupted cells of the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. The accessibility to trypsin proteolysis of an epitope located near the solvent-exposed N-terminus of the beta-subunit was compared to that of the alpha-subunit, whose N- and C-termini had previously been localized from the trypsinolysis pattern to the stromal and lumenal sides of spinach thylakoid membranes, respectively [Tae et al. (1988) Biochemistry 27, 9075-9080; Vallon et al. (1989) Biochim. Biophys. Acta 975, 132-141]. The N-terminal epitope of the cyanobacterial beta-subunit was modified by introducing a tridecapeptide epitope, previously found to be immunoreactive, from the C-terminal region of the spinach chloroplast alpha-subunit. This epitope had no homology with the cyanobacterial alpha-subunit. The cells with the hybrid beta-subunit retained full photosynthetic activity. The intactness of membranes from osmotically shocked cyanobacteria was tested by trypsin inaccessibility to (a) the alpha-subunit C-terminus and (b) the manganese-stabilizing protein (MSP) of the oxygen-evolving complex that is on the lumenal side of the membrane. The loss after trypsinolysis of most of the beta-subunit immunoreactivity, under conditions where (i) the alpha-subunit was cleaved near the N-terminus in both spinach thylakoids and osmotically shocked cyanobacterial membranes and (ii) the MSP protein in cyanobacteria was not disrupted, implied that the orientation of the beta-subunit was parallel to that of the alpha-subunit in both kinds of membranes.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

The role of CP 47 in the evolution of oxygen and the binding of the extrinsic 33-kDa protein to the core complex of Photosystem II as determined by limited proteolysis

In order to identify the domain within Photosystem II complexes that functions in the evolution of oxygen, we performed limited proteolysis with lysylendopeptidase of the core complex of Photosystem II which had been depleted of the extrinsic 33-kDa protein (Mn-stabilizing protein). The cleavage sites were estimated from the amino-terminal sequences of the degradation fragments, their apparent molecular masses and amino-acid compositions. Under certain conditions, the D2 protein was cleaved at Lys13; and a chlorophyll a-binding protein, CP 47, was cleaved at Lys227 and Lys389. Another chlorophyll a-binding protein, CP 43, was degraded more rapidly than CP 47. The oxygen-evolving activity and the capacity for rebinding of the 33-kDa protein to the core complex of Photosystem II decreased in parallel, with kinetics very similar to those of the cleavage of CP 47 at Lys389. These observations strongly suggest that the hydrophilic domain around Lys389 of CP 47, which are located on the lumenal side, is important in the binding of the 33-kDa protein and in maintaining the oxygen-evolving activity of the Photosystem II complex.

Truncation of the COOH-terminal domain of the psbE gene product in Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803: requirements for photosystem II assembly and function

The COOH-terminal domain of the 80-residue cytochrome b559 alpha-subunit (psbE gene product) in Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 was sequentially truncated in order to determine the minimum polypeptide length needed for function and assembly. A stop codon was introduced into the Arg-50, Arg-59, or Tyr-69 codons of the psbE gene, generating mutants truncated by 31, 22, and 12 residues, respectively. Removal of 12 residues caused a decrease of 20% in PSII function. Truncation of 22 or 31 residues caused a large decrease (60-85%) in the photoautotrophic growth rate, the rate of O2 evolution, and the amplitude of the 77 K 696-nm fluorescence, and a concomitant increase in the constant yield fraction (F0/Fmax) of the chlorophyll fluorescence. The level of residual activity in the Arg50-stop mutant was 10-20% of the wild type, which was reflected in a similar low level of immunochemically detected D2 polypeptide. Quantitation of the PSII reaction center stoichiometry of the Arg50-stop mutant by analysis of [14C]DCMU binding also showed a 5-fold decrease (1:910 Chl in wild type and 1:5480 Chl in R50) in the PSII reaction center concentration. However, the KD value for DCMU in the residual 15% of the complexes to which it bound was approximately equal to that (25 nM) of the wild type. Northern blot analysis showed no decrease in the b559 psbE mRNA level. Chemical difference spectral analysis of heme content indicated that the level of native cytochrome b559 heme in the Arg50-stop mutant (1:640 Chl) was 80% that of wild type (1:510 Chl).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)