No description available.

In mammals, there are two isoforms of eukaryotic translation elongation factor 1A (eEF1A) called eEF1A1 and eEF1A2. They share 98% similarity at the amino acid level, and the main function of both is to facilitate the elongation process in protein translation. However, they have very different expression patterns. While eEF1A1 is universally expressed, eEF1A2 is strictly expressed in muscle, brain and heart. The over-expression of eEF1A2 has been found in cancers, such as ovarian and breast cancer. The factors influencing the different expression patterns of the two isoforms and the mechanisms by which eEF1A2 can act as an oncogene are not clear, therefore, the main aim of this study was to further investigate these two areas. The first aim was to find out whether the resveratrol induced down-regulation of eEF1A2 was mediated by miR-663. Western blotting in MCF7 cells showed that the level of endogenous eEF1A2 was decreased after resveratrol treatment while eEF1A1 remained stable. In contrast, NIH-3T3 stable cell lines which stably express the eEF1A2 coding sequence (CDS) only did not show this down-regulation, suggesting that the untranslated regions (UTRs) might play a role in this regulation. I then showed that miR-663 has ability to down-regulate a reporter linked to the UTRs of eEF1A2. The same reporter gene harbouring UTRs in which the binding sites of miR-663 had been deleted also showed down-regulation after resveratrol treatment, suggesting that the UTRs of EEF1A2 are key to the down-regulation of eEF1A2 by resveratrol but that miR-663 does not mediate this decrease. The second project aimed to address why eEF1A2 is an oncogene but eEF1A1 is not. The 3D structure of human eEF1A1 and eEF1A2 shows that the most of the highly conserved amino acids differences between the two isoforms are Ser and Thr residues, which are potential sites for phosphorylation. I mutated these three sites in eEF1A2 expression constructs to the equivalent amino acid from eEF1A1. Firstly, by transient transfection, all the mutant eEF1A2 were shown expressed and the sub-cellular locations of eEF1A2 remain unchanged after site-directed mutagenesis. Then, stable cell lines were generated. Anchorage independent growth (soft agar) and focus formation assays showed that the stable cell lines harbouring wild type eEF1A2 were significantly more transformed that those expressing the eEF1A2 mutants. However, there was no apparent difference in global protein synthesis between these cell lines. The results suggest that the potential phosphorylated sites in eEF1A2 play an important role in its oncogenicity and that this oncogenicity is not related to the canonical function of eEF1A2.

No description available.

Abnormal expression of the eukaryotic translation elongation factor 1A (eEF1A) has been implicated in disease states such as motor neuron degeneration and cancer. Two variants of eEF1A are found in mammals, named eEF1A1 and eEF1A2. These two variants are encoded by different genes, produce proteins which are 92% identical but have very different patterns of expression. eEF1A1 is almost ubiquitously expressed while eEF1A2 is expressed only in specialised cell types such as motor neurons and muscle. A spontaneous mutation in eEF1A2 results in the wasted mouse phenotype which shows similar characteristics in the mouse to those seen in human motor neuron degeneration. This mutation has been shown to be a 15.8kb deletion resulting in the complete loss of the promoter region and first non coding exon of eEF1A2 which completely abolishes protein expression. The main aim of this project was to further investigate the role of eEF1A2 in motor neuron degeneration. Firstly, although the wasted phenotype is considered to be caused by a recessive mutation, I established a cohort of aged heterozygote mice to evaluate whether any changes are seen later in life that might model late onset motor neuron degeneration. A combination of behavioural tests and pathology was used to compare wild type and heterozygous mice up to 21 months of age. Whilst results indicate that there is no significant difference between ageing heterozygotes and wildtype controls, there is an indication that female heterozygote mice perform slightly worse that wildtype controls on the rotarod (a behavioural test for motor function). Secondly, I aimed to investigate the primary cause of the wasted pathology by generating transgenic wasted mice expressing neuronal eEF1A2 only. This would complement previous experiments in the lab which studied transgenic wasted mice expressing eEF1A2 in muscle only. Unfortunately the expression of eEF1A2 in the transgenic animals was not neuronal specific. However a transgenic line with expression of eEF1A2 in neurons and skeletal muscle but not cardiac muscle has been generated which clearly warrants further investigation. Thirdly, I wished to assess whether eEF1A2 has any role in human motor neuron degeneration. To achieve this, eEF1A2 expression was investigated in spinal cords from human motor neuron disease (MND) patients. Preliminary data suggests that motor neurons from some MND patients express significantly less eEF1A2 than motor neurons of control samples. Further work is required to confirm these findings. Finally, I investigated the individual roles of eEF1A1 and eEF1A2 in the heat shock response. I used RNAi to ablate each variant separately in cells and subsequently measured the ability of each variant individually to mount a heat shock response. Results indicate a clear role for eEF1A1 but not eEF1A2 in the induction of heat shock. This may explain in part why motor neurons exhibit a poor heat shock response as they express eEF1A2 and not eEF1A1. These experiments shed light on our understanding of the role of eEF1A2 in motor neuron degeneration and uncover many new avenues of future investigation.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:30:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2006-03-08Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T21:01:42Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 zanelli_cf_dr_araiq.pdf: 5712697 bytes, checksum: 1977a3ae4700587d216d3af5de0d62a1 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / O fator de início de tradução de eucariotos 5A (eIF5A) é uma proteína altamente conservada desde arquebactérias a mamíferos e sofre uma modificação póstraducional única, necessária para sua maturação funcional, chamada de hipusinação. Apesar do grau de conservação de eIF5A, e da essencialidade de sua função nos organismos estudados, seu papel no metabolismo celular ainda se encontra indeterminado. Vários mutantes condicionais de eIF5A, sensíveis ao aumento de temperatura, têm sido isolados e caracterizados na levedura Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Utilizando um desses mutantes de eIF5A, o alelo tif51A-1, foi isolado o gene PKC1 como um supressor em alto número de cópias do fenótipo de sensibilidade a temperatura deste mutante. O entendimento de como se dá esta interação genética foi um dos enfoques deste trabalho. Foi mostrado que a via de MAP quinases que atua abaixo de Pkc1 não é responsável pela supressão deste mutante e a identificação dos novos supressores do mutante tif51A-1, GIC1 e ZDS1, levou à sugestão de uma nova via de sinalização a partir de Pkc1. Com a realização de experimentos subsequentes, foi confirmado que a nova via Pkc1-Zds1-Gic1 é responsável pela supressão do mutante tif51A-1 promovida por PKC1. Além disso, estes três supressores são importantes para a polaridade celular em S. cerevisiae, um processo essencial para a progressão no ciclo celular deste organismo, e, interessantemente, os mutantes tif51A-1 e tif51A-3 de eIF5A evidenciaram defeitos na polarização do citoesqueleto de actina na temperatura não permissiva. Esses dados evidenciam uma correlação de eIF5A com progressão no ciclo celular de S. cerevisiae. / The eukaryotic translation initiation factor 5A (eIF5A) is a highly conserved protein from archaebacteria to mammals and undergoes hypusination, an essential unique post-translational modification. Despite the high degree of conservation of eIF5A and its essential function in the studied organisms, its cellular role remains unclear. Several temperature-sensitive eIF5A mutants have been isolated and characterized in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Using one of these mutants, the tif51A-1 allele, PKC1 was identified as a high-copy suppressor of the temperature-sensitive phenotype shown by this mutant. The understanding of this genetic interaction was one of the aims of this work. It was shown that the MAP kinase cascade downstream Pkc1 is not responsible for this phenotypic suppression and the identification of the new tif51A-1 suppressors, GIC1 and ZDS1, suggested a new signaling pathway branching from Pkc1. Further analysis confirmed that Pkc1-Zds1-Gic1 constitute a new pathway that is responsible for tif51A-1 mutant suppression promoted by PKC1. Moreover, these three suppressors are important for cell polarity in S. cerevisiae, an essential process for cell cycle progression in yeast, and, interestingly, the eIF5A mutants tif51A-1 and tif51A-3 showed defects in actin cytoskeleton polarization at the restrictive temperature. These data supported a connection between eIF5A and cell cycle progression in S. cerevisiae. As eIF5A was originally implicated in the process of translation, in order to better investigate the specific function of this factor, polysomal profiling analysis was performed and it was demonstrated that eIF5A interacts with monosomes in a tranlation dependent manner and, besides that, eIF5A mutants show altered polysomal distribution suggesting a possible defect in the elongation step of translation.

Orientador: Sandro Roberto Valentini / Banca: Maria Célia Bertolini / Banca: Gustavo Henrique Goldman / Banca: Carla Columbano de Oliveira / Banca: Nilson Ivo Tonin Zanchin / Resumo: O fator de início de tradução de eucariotos 5A (eIF5A) é uma proteína altamente conservada desde arquebactérias a mamíferos e sofre uma modificação póstraducional única, necessária para sua maturação funcional, chamada de hipusinação. Apesar do grau de conservação de eIF5A, e da essencialidade de sua função nos organismos estudados, seu papel no metabolismo celular ainda se encontra indeterminado. Vários mutantes condicionais de eIF5A, sensíveis ao aumento de temperatura, têm sido isolados e caracterizados na levedura Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Utilizando um desses mutantes de eIF5A, o alelo tif51A-1, foi isolado o gene PKC1 como um supressor em alto número de cópias do fenótipo de sensibilidade a temperatura deste mutante. O entendimento de como se dá esta interação genética foi um dos enfoques deste trabalho. Foi mostrado que a via de MAP quinases que atua abaixo de Pkc1 não é responsável pela supressão deste mutante e a identificação dos novos supressores do mutante tif51A-1, GIC1 e ZDS1, levou à sugestão de uma nova via de sinalização a partir de Pkc1. Com a realização de experimentos subsequentes, foi confirmado que a nova via Pkc1-Zds1-Gic1 é responsável pela supressão do mutante tif51A-1 promovida por PKC1. Além disso, estes três supressores são importantes para a polaridade celular em S. cerevisiae, um processo essencial para a progressão no ciclo celular deste organismo, e, interessantemente, os mutantes tif51A-1 e tif51A-3 de eIF5A evidenciaram defeitos na polarização do citoesqueleto de actina na temperatura não permissiva. Esses dados evidenciam uma correlação de eIF5A com progressão no ciclo celular de S. cerevisiae. / Abstract: The eukaryotic translation initiation factor 5A (eIF5A) is a highly conserved protein from archaebacteria to mammals and undergoes hypusination, an essential unique post-translational modification. Despite the high degree of conservation of eIF5A and its essential function in the studied organisms, its cellular role remains unclear. Several temperature-sensitive eIF5A mutants have been isolated and characterized in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Using one of these mutants, the tif51A-1 allele, PKC1 was identified as a high-copy suppressor of the temperature-sensitive phenotype shown by this mutant. The understanding of this genetic interaction was one of the aims of this work. It was shown that the MAP kinase cascade downstream Pkc1 is not responsible for this phenotypic suppression and the identification of the new tif51A-1 suppressors, GIC1 and ZDS1, suggested a new signaling pathway branching from Pkc1. Further analysis confirmed that Pkc1-Zds1-Gic1 constitute a new pathway that is responsible for tif51A-1 mutant suppression promoted by PKC1. Moreover, these three suppressors are important for cell polarity in S. cerevisiae, an essential process for cell cycle progression in yeast, and, interestingly, the eIF5A mutants tif51A-1 and tif51A-3 showed defects in actin cytoskeleton polarization at the restrictive temperature. These data supported a connection between eIF5A and cell cycle progression in S. cerevisiae. As eIF5A was originally implicated in the process of translation, in order to better investigate the specific function of this factor, polysomal profiling analysis was performed and it was demonstrated that eIF5A interacts with monosomes in a tranlation dependent manner and, besides that, eIF5A mutants show altered polysomal distribution suggesting a possible defect in the elongation step of translation. / Doutor

No description available.

2 Abstract Eukaryotic initiation factor 3 (eIF3) is a critical player involved in many steps of translation initiation, which ultimately result in the formation of the elongation competent 80S ribosome. With its 13 subunits (eIF3a - eIF3m) it is the largest and the most complex translation initiation factor composed of three mutually interconnected modules (i - iii), however, the role of individual subunits involved in its structural integrity and proper function is not fully explored. The eIF3e subunit was shown to be a part of the human eIF3 structural core and to help in the mRNA recruitment to the 43S pre-initiation complex by forming a molecular bridge between the 40S ribosomal subunit and the mRNA cap-binding complex. In this study, we employed siRNA-directed downregulation of eIF3e in HeLa cells and analysed its impact on the overall eIF3 integrity and function in vivo. The eIF3e knock-down (eIF3eK.D. ) led to the severe reduction of protein amounts of other three subunits (eIF3d, k and l), which together with the subunit eIF3c and e form module ii of the eIF3 complex. Remaining module i (composed of a, b, g and i) and iii (containing f, h and m) stayed partially bound perhaps thanks to a bridging effect of eIF3c, and showed reduced binding efficiency towards the 40S subunit compared to control...

Eukaryotic Translation Elongation Factor 1 Alpha (EEF1A) exists as two forms with different tissue specificities and encoded by separate loci: eEF1A1 on 6q13 and eEF1A2 on 20q13.3. eEF1A1 is ubiquitously expressed whereas eEF1A2 expression is normally limited to the heart, brain and skeletal muscles. eEF1A proteins are GTP-binding proteins that recruit an amino-acylated tRNA to the ribosome during the elongation phase of protein translation. eEF1A2 mRNA and protein are highly expressed in 50–60% of primary human breast tumors and metastases but not in normal breast epithelium. Since it is also overexpressed in 30% of primary human ovarian tumors, transforms rodent fibroblasts and increases their tumorigenicity in nude mice, eEF1A2 is considered to be a potential human oncogene. The mechanism of eEF1A2 expression is yet to be determined. Studies showed no gene mutation and no correlation between locus amplification or methylation and gene expression. Phosphate Tyrosine Kinase-6 (PTK6) is also located on 20q13.3. It is 48kb upstream of EEF1A2. PTK6 is a non-receptor tyrosine-kinase that is normally expressed in epithelial linings, prostate, skin and oral epithelium but it is not detected in the normal human mammary epithelium. PTK6 has been found to be expressed in many breast cancer cell lines and in approximately 60% of primary human breast tumors but it has not been detected in normal human breast tissue nor in fibroadenomas. Like other tyrosine kinases, PTK6 phosphorylates and activates downstream substrates that would be predicted to lead to increased transcriptional activity and therefore mediates proliferation of breast cancer cells. PTK6 is considered a prognostic marker of metastasis-free survival in breast cancer independent of the classical markers of tumor size, lymph node involvement and HER2 status. The aim of this project was to characterize for the first time the genomic region containing the two mentioned breast cancer oncogenes and understand their various roleswhether they act in tandem or independently in breast tumorigenesis. Immunohistochemistry was performed on tissue microarrays from 300 breast cancer patients to detect the expression levels of eEF1A2 and PTK6. Tumors that showed a high co-expression were analyzed for the genes’ copy number. An increased copy number of PTK6 was detected but not of eEF1A2 nor of adjacent genes on the 20q13.3 amplicon. To understand the effect of EEF1A2 expression on other genes, microarray analysis was performed on NIH-3T3 cells stably transfected with EEF1A2. Many upregulated genes were associated with different types of cancers. This was further confirmed by real-time PCR. However, when the NIH-3T3 cells were transiently transfected with EEF1A2, the genes that were upregulated in the microarray study showed no change in expression. In conclusion, EEF1A2 and PTK6 act independently and each acts through a different mechanism in breast tumorigenesis.

Deoxyhypusine synthase (DHS) catalyzes the first step in the hypusination of eukaryotic translation initiation factor 5A (eIF5A). In human cells, two eIF5A isoforms are present, eIF5A-1 and eIF5A-2, and DHS catalyzes the hypusination of both. Since both eIF5As are substrates for DHS, the biological functions of DHS are likely to be exerted through the various post-translational forms of these two eIF5As. The lysine form of eIF5A-1 has been associated with apoptosis, while the hypusinated form of eIF5A-1 has been associated with cell viability and proliferation. eIF5A-2 has been found to be over-expressed in certain cancers and has been proposed to function as an oncogene. Dhs is also over-expressed in certain human cancers and is a metastatic signature gene. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the role of DHS in cancer cell invasiveness, cell proliferation, and apoptosis using RNA interference. The main finding of the study is that DHS siRNA treatment decreases invasiveness of PC3 cells in vitro. Both DHS 0 siRNA treatment and DHS 1/b siRNA treatment significantly reduced cell invasiveness of PC3 cells as measured by the Matrigel invasion assay. Potential confounding variables, such as differences in cell proliferation or differences in apoptosis in response to DHS siRNA treatment, were assessed using the XTT cell proliferation assay and the Annexin V/Pi apoptosis assay, and they were found not to have an effect. In the absence of serum, DHS siRNA treatment did not result in significant decrease in cell proliferation compared to the control siRNA treatment. Furthermore, DHS siRNA treatment did not induce apoptosis in PC3 cells under the present experimental conditions. In conclusion, depletion of DHS with RNAi reduces invasiveness, but does not induce apoptosis in PC3 cells. The significance of the research is that the anti-invasiveness effect of DHS depletion in metastatic cancer cells is shown for the first time in the present study. Thus, DHS depletion may be useful to combat cancer in conjunction with L-eIF5A-1 over-expression.