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No description available.

Kaiso is a POZ-ZF transcription factor initially identified as an interaction partner for the cell adhesion co-factor p120^ctn. Kaiso-DNA binding is inhibited by p120^ctn, implicating p120^ctn in the regulation of Kaiso transcriptional activity. In this study, Kaiso repressed transcription of a luciferase reporter carrying four copies of the sequence-specific Kaiso-binding site (4xKBS) in artificial promoter assays. Mutation of the 4xKBS which is known to disrupt Kaiso-DNA binding also abrogated Kaiso-mediated transcriptional repression. Moreover, p120^ctn inhibited Kaiso-mediated transcriptional repression via the 4xKBS, yet neither the p120^ctn deletion mutant ΔR3-ll (lacking the Kaiso binding site) or p120^ctn NLS mutant (which cannot enter the nucleus) inhibited transcriptional repression. Furthermore, in NIH 3T3 cells (which do not demonstrate a Kaiso-pl20ctn interaction), pl20ctn failed to inhibit transcriptional repression. Many POZZF transcriptional repressors recruit an HDAC complex via their POZ domain to repress transcription. To investigate the mechanism of Kaiso-mediated transcriptional repression, the POZ domain of Kaiso was deleted, which abrogated transcriptional repression. Kaiso immunoprecipitates contained HDAC activity, and the HDAC co-repressor Sin3A co-immunoprecipitated with Kaiso, implying that Kaiso recruits Sin3A to repress transcription in an HDAC-dependent manner. Lastly, Kaiso repressed transcription via a human 𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑙𝑦𝑠𝑖𝑛 promoter fragment. This suggests that the KBS element is functionally relevant and implicates 𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑙𝑦𝑠𝑖𝑛 as a Kaiso target-gene. Collectively, these data establish Kaiso as a sequence-specific, HDAC-dependent transcriptional repressor that is regulated by the adhesion co-factor p120^ctn. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

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The Krüppel-associated box (KRAB) zinc finger protein (ZFP) genes comprise one of the largest gene families in the mammalian genome, encoding transcription factors with an N-terminal KRAB domain and C-terminal zinc fingers. The KRAB domain interacts with a co-repressor protein, KAP-1, which can recruit various factors causing transcriptional repression of genes to which KRAB ZFPs bind. Little is currently known about the gene targets of the ~400 human and mouse KRAB ZFPs. Many KRAB ZFPs interact with factors other than KAP-1. To identify proteins that may interact with one particular KRAB ZFP, Zfp647, I previously carried out a yeast two-hybrid screen using the full-length Zfp647 sequence and a mouse embryonic cDNA library. I have now tested the interactions from this screen for their specificity for Zfp647. I show that Zfp647 can interact with itself and at least 20 other KRAB ZFPs through their zinc finger domains, and have confirmed the Zfp647 self-interaction by in vitro co-immunoprecipitation. In my yeast two-hybrid screen, Zfp647 bound to KAP-1 as well as another related protein, ARD1/Trim23. Zfp647 also interacts with proteins that function in ubiquitylation. I have found evidence to suggest that Zfp647 may also interact with proteins encoding jumonji domains both by yeast two-hybrid assay and by co-immunoprecipitation from NIH/3T3 cell extracts. We have previously found that Zfp647 localises to non-heterochromatic nuclear foci in differentiated ES cells, which also contain KAP-1 and HP1, and which lie adjacent to PML nuclear bodies in a high proportion of cells. I have found that these foci are also visible in pMEFs, but not NIH/3T3 tissue culture cells. Immunofluorescence studies with antibodies against proteins from the yeast twohybrid screen have not shown any significant co-localisation with Zfp647. KAP-1 is sumoylated ex vivo, as are two human KRAB ZFPs. Because Zfp647 lies adjacent to PML nuclear bodies and can associate with proteins involved in posttranslational modification, I tested whether Zfp647 is also modified. I characterised a sheep _-Zfp647 antibody previously created in the lab and have shown that it detects Zfp647 by western blot, but not by immunofluorescence. I show that treatment of NIH/3T3 cells with NEM, which prevents the removal of protein modifications, leads to the appearance of higher molecular weight forms of Zfp647. Modification of Zfp647 is not dependent on KAP-1, which is known to function as a SUMO E3 ligase. Attempts to classify the modification as either ubiquitin, SUMO or NEDD8 have suggested that Zfp647 may be mono-ubquitylated. The larger modified forms of Zfp647 are present in both NIH/3T3 and ES cells. Interestingly, I found that the modification profile of the protein changes over the course of ES cell differentiation, during which time Zfp647 relocalises to punctate nuclear foci; thus Zfp647 modification may be involved in this process.

Deformed epidermal autoregulatory factor 1 (DEAF1) encodes a transcription factor essential in early embryonic and neuronal development. In humans, mutations in the DNA binding domain of DEAF1 cause intellectual disability together with clinical characteristics collectively termed DEAF1-associated neurodevelopmental disorders (DAND). The objective of this study is to 1) assess the pathogenicity of newly identified variants using established functional assays, and 2) confirm and map the interaction domain of DEAF1 with HDAC1 and evaluate the importance of DEAF1-HDAC1 interaction on DEAF1-mediated transcriptional repression. Exome sequencing analysis identified six de novo DEAF1 mutations (p.D200Y, p.S201R, p.K250E, p.D251N, p.K253E, and p.F297S). Promoter activity experiments indicate DEAF1 transcriptional repression activity was altered by p.K250E, p.K253E, and p.F297S. Transcriptional activation activity was altered by p.K250E, p.K253E, p.F297S, and p.D251N. Combined with clinical phenotype of the patients, this work establishes the pathogenicity of new DEAF1 variants. Previous studies identified a potential protein interaction between DEAF1 and several proteins of the nucleosome remodeling and deacetylating (NuRD) complex including Histone Deacetylase 1 (HDAC1), Retinoblastoma Binding Protein 4 (RBBP4), Methyl CpG Binding Domain Protein 3 (MBD3). GST pull-down and co-immunoprecipitation (CoIP) assays confirmed and mapped the interaction with HDAC1 between amino acids 113 – 176 of DEAF1. To determine whether DEAF1-mediated repression requires HDAC1 activity, HEK293t wild type or CRISPR/Cas9-mediated DEAF1 knockout cells were treated with the HDAC inhibitor Trichostatin A (TSA). Interestingly, this study demonstrates that the requirement of HDAC1 activity on DEAF1-mediated transcriptional repression activity is target gene specific and expands our understanding of DEAF1 mediated transcriptional repression.

Estrogens exert numerous actions throughout the human body, targeting healthy tissue while also enhancing the proliferative capacity of breast cancers. Estrogen signaling is mediated by the estrogen receptor (ER), which binds DNA and ultimately affects the expression of adjacent genes. Current understanding of ER-mediated transcriptional regulation is mostly limited to genes whose transcript levels increase following estrogen exposure, though recent studies demonstrate that direct down-regulation of estrogen-responsive genes is also a significant feature of ER action. We hypothesized that differences in cis-regulatory DNA was a factor in determining target gene expression and performed computational and experimental studies to test this hypothesis. From our in silico analyses, we show that the binding motifs for certain transcription factors are enriched in cis-regulatory sequences adjacent to repressed target genes compared to induced target genes, including the motif for RUNX1. In silico analyses were tested experimentally using dual luciferase reporter assays, which indicate that several ER binding sites are estrogen responsive. Mutagenesis of transcription factor motifs (for ER and RUNX1) reduced the response of reporter gene. Further experiments demonstrated that co-recruitment of ER and RUNX1 is necessary for repression of gene expression at some target genes. These findings highlight a novel interaction between ER and RUNX1 and their role in transcriptional repression in breast cancer.

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