Several pathogenic Gram-negative bacteria invest in sophisticated type III secretion systems (T3SS) to incapacitate their eukaryotic hosts. T3SSs can secrete protein cargo outside the bacterial cell and also target many of them into the eukaryotic cell interior. Internalized proteins promote bacterial colonization, survival and transmission, and can often cause severe disease. An example is the Ysc-Yop T3SS apparatus assembled by pathogenic Yersinia spp. A correctly assembled Ysc-Yop T3SS spans the Yersinia envelope and also protrudes from the bacterial surface. Upon host cell contact, this system is competent to secrete hydrophobic translocators that form a translocon pore in the host cell membrane to complete the delivery channel bridging both bacterial and host cells. Newly synthesized effector Yops may pass through this channel to gain entry into the host cell cytosol.As type III secretion (T3S) substrates function sequentially during infection, it is hypothesized that substrate export is temporally controlled to ensure that those required first are prioritized for secretion. On this basis three functional groups are classified as early (i.e. structural components), middle (i.e. translocators) and late (i.e. effectors). Factors considered to orchestrate the T3S of substrates are many, including the intrinsic substrate secretion signal sequences, customized chaperones, and recognition/sorting platforms at the base of the assembled T3SS. Investigating the interplay between these elements is critical for a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms governing export control during Yersinia T3S.To examine the composition of the N-terminal T3S signals of the YscX early substrate and the YopD middle substrate, these segments were altered by mutagenesis and the modified substrates analyzed for their T3S. Translational fusions between these signals and a signalless β-Lactamase were used to determine their optimal length required for efficient T3S. This revealed that YscX and YopD export is most efficiently supported by their first 15 N-terminal residues. At least for YopD, this is a peptide signal and not base upon information in the mRNA sequence. Moreover, features within and upstream of this segment contribute to their translational control. In parallel, bacteria were engineered to produce substrate chimeras where the N-terminal segments were exchanged between substrates of different classes in an effort to examine the temporal dynamics of T3S. In several cases, Yersinia producing chimeric substrates were defective in T3S activity, which could be a consequence of disturbing a pre-existing hierarchal secretion mechanism.YopN and TyeA regulatory molecules can be naturally produced as a 42 kDa YopN-TyeA hybrid, via a +1 frame shift event somewhere at the 5’-end of yopN. To study this event, Yersinia were engineered to artificially produce this hybrid, and these maintained in vitro T3S control of both middle and late substrates. However, modestly diminished directed targeting of effectors into eukaryotic cells correlated to virulence attenuation in vivo. Upon further investigation, a YopN C-terminal segment encompassing residues 278 to 287 was probably responsible, as this region is critical for YopN to control T3S, via enabling a specific interaction with TyeA.Investigated herein were molecular mechanisms to orchestrate substrate export by the T3SS of Yersinia. While N-terminal secretion signals may contribute to specific substrate order, the YopN and TyeA regulatory molecules do not appear to distinguish between the different substrate classes.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(医科学) / 甲第20286号 / 医科博第77号 / 新制||医科||5(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院医学研究科医科学専攻 / (主査)教授 斎藤 通紀, 教授 篠原 隆司, 教授 戸口田 淳也 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Medical Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

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Translation control is crucial during virus-host interaction, in which the host relies on the translation machinery to mount an antiviral response or induce the inflammation response to reduce virus spread, while the virus aims to take control of this system to thwart the host defense while producing viral progeny. The field of oncolytic virus (OV) therapy relies on replicating, engineered viruses that preferentially infect tumor cells to induce direct oncolysis or promote an antitumor immune response. Despite the importance of translation control in virus-host interaction, not much has been described on the interaction at the translation level between OV and cancer cells. I propose that this knowledge gap could reveal significant improvements in OV efficacy in treating cancer. In my first study, I set out to characterize the translatome of an infection-resistant breast cancer cell line infected by three clinically advanced OVs to identify residual antiviral activity in cancer cells regulated by translation control. I found the inositol phosphatase Inpp5e to be a novel antiviral gene that is translationally induced during infection via a transcript variant shift. Mechanistically, I showed that the majority of Inpp5e transcripts in uninfected cells contain a long 5’ UTR that harbor four translationally inhibitory upstream reading frames (uORF). Yet, OV infection induced the expression of a shorter 5’ UTR with a spliced intron that removes three uORFs, derepressing the translation of Inpp5e mRNA. CRISPR-Cas9 knockout of Inpp5e also enhanced the infectivity of oncolytic HSV1 and VSV. My study suggests the existence of a class of translationally regulated antiviral genes in cancer cells. In my second study, I sought to adapt the translation of transgenes to the unique translation condition imposed by the infecting virus via the incorporation of a viral 5’UTR. I identified HSV1 5’UTRs by locating the transcription start site of most HSV1 genes using RNA-seq data, then determined the 5’UTR of US11 as a potent translation enhancer during HSV1 infection. Incorporation of this 5’UTR into the transgene expression cassette inserted into the HSV1 genome enhanced transgene expression significantly at the translation level. In my third study, I set out to explore the mechanism of miR-223 mediated inflammation inhibition. miR-223 is a protective miRNA in the context of atherogenesis via suppressing inflammatory signaling. Using transcriptome and translatome profiling (RNA-seq and Ribo-seq), I found that the inhibitory effect of miR-223 on inflammation occurs primarily at the translation level. Overall, my work highlights the importance of translation control in OV-cancer cells interaction, as well as in inflammation-related diseases.

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Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In response to different environmental stresses, phosphorylation of eukaryotic initiation factor-2 (eIF2) rapidly reduces protein synthesis, which lowers energy expenditure and facilitates reprogramming of gene expression to remediate stress damage. Central to the changes in gene expression, eIF2 phosphorylation also enhances translation of ATF4, a transcriptional activator of genes subject to the Integrated Stress Response (ISR). The ISR increases the expression of genes important for alleviating stress, or alternatively triggering apoptosis. One ISR target gene encodes the transcriptional regulator CHOP whose accumulation is critical for stress-induced apoptosis. In this dissertation research, I show that eIF2 phosphorylation induces preferential translation of CHOP by a mechanism involving a single upstream ORF (uORF) located in the 5’-leader of the CHOP mRNA. In the absence of stress and low eIF2 phosphorylation, translation of the uORF serves as a barrier that prevents translation of the downstream CHOP coding region. Enhanced eIF2 phosphorylation during stress facilitates ribosome bypass of the uORF, and instead results in the translation of CHOP. Stable cell lines were also constructed that express CHOP transcript containing the wild type uORF or deleted for the uORF and each were analyzed for expression changes in response to the different stress conditions. Increased CHOP levels due to the absence of inhibitory uORF sensitized the cells to stress-induced apoptosis when compared to the cells that express CHOP mRNA containing the wild type uORF. This new mechanism of translational control explains how expression of CHOP and the fate of cells are tightly linked to the levels of phosphorylated eIF2 and stress damage.