The microtubule network is the central framework in multiple cellular processes. The microtubule array undergoes dramatic changes as cells progress through the cell cycle. In mitosis the interphase microtubule array is reorganised into the dynamic mitotic spindle which mediates chromosome segregation. This reorganisation is coordinated by microtubule associated proteins (MAPs). However, little is known about the cell cycle regulation of MAPs and how it plays a role in mitotic spindle formation. In this thesis, I describe the development of a method to determine the profiles and relative quantities of MAPs purified from mitotic and interphase Drosophila culture cells. This method utilises mass spectrometry combined with stable isotope labelling by amino acids in cell culture (SILAC) for protein quantification. This study identified MAPs whose association with microtubules increased during mitosis and revealed a new mitotic MAP, which I have named NuMAP. NuMAP localises to the nucleus in interphase and to microtubules only in mitosis, covering the entire spindle. Truncation analysis identified two protein domains sufficient but not essential for nuclear localisation and one C-terminal domain vital for microtubule localisation. Interestingly, creation of an interphase cytoplasmic pool indicated that the interphase form of NuMAP has low affinity for microtubules, suggesting a cell cycle-related post-translational modification. A deletion mutant of the NuMAP gene was generated by P element excision and will be valuable to define the role of NuMAP in fly development.

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Nucleoporins mediate nucleocytoplasmic trafficking in interphase. In mitosis, upon nuclear envelope breakdown, the role and regulation of Nups remain to be elucidated. An important subcomplex of nucleoporins is the Nup107-160 complex, which, in mitosis, is involved in spindle assembly and nuclear pore re-assembly. Here we show that the level of a key constituent of the Nup107-160 complex- Nup96 is cell cycle regulated. We found that the mechanism involved in regulating Nup96 levels in mitosis is proteolysis by the anaphase-promoting complex (APC). Nup96 interacts with the APC, and its proteolysis can be regulated by Cdc20 and Cdh1. Like the Nup107-160 complex, the APC is localized at kinetochores, centrosomes, and spindles. Disruption of Nup96 levels led to an acceleration of prophase to prometaphase transition and, most importantly, resulted in a delay of G1 progression. Thus, regulation of Nup96 proteolysis in mitosis sets the stage for proper G1 progression. Additionally, we have observed differential regulation of members of the Nup107-160 complex during mitosis and have identified interacting partners of Nup96 at the centrosome which reveal a novel role of nucleoporins in regulating microtubule nucleation.

EFHC1 est une nouvelle protéine qui savère mutée dans certaines familles atteintes dEMJ. A ce jour, létude des mutations associées à différents types dépilepsie a souvent débouché sur lidentification de mutations au niveau de gènes codant des canaux ioniques. Cependant, dans ce cas, les résultats sont beaucoup plus inattendus ; la protéine impliquée nétant pas un canal ionique mais une protéine à domaine EF-hand. Lobjectif principal du présent travail est de mieux appréhender les propriétés biochimiques et fonctionnelles dEFHC1. Une telle démarche nécessite notamment didentifier les tissus et les cellules qui expriment la protéine, de déterminer la localisation cellulaire et enfin didentifier les partenaires protéiques. Dans la première partie de ce travail, après avoir observé la localisation dEFHC1 au niveau de lappareil mitotique et du centrosome dans différentes lignées cellulaires, nous nous sommes intéressés à létude de lexpression et de la localisation de lARN messager et de la protéine EFHC1 dans les cerveaux de souris adulte et embryonnaire (au 16ème jour embryonnaire). La seconde partie de ce travail consiste en lidentification des partenaires protéiques potentiels dEFHC1 grâce à des expériences dimmunoprécipitation. Les différentes protéines testées étant choisies sur bases de nos résultats antérieurs ainsi que sur les données disponibles dans la littérature. Dans la troisième partie de ce travail, nous nous sommes intéressés à létude de la localisation dans des cellules HEK-293 de quatre protéines à domaines DM10 homologues à EFHC1, à savoir EFHC2 humaine, Rib72 de Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, Defhc1 et Defhc2 de Drosophila melanogaster. Chaque chapitre fera lobjet dun rappel systématique du contexte scientifique qui a précédé notre démarche expérimentale, des objectifs poursuivis, des résultats obtenus et de leurs discussions. Nous rassemblerons ensuite ces résultats dans le cadre dune conclusion.

Tau protein is one of the microtubule-associated proteins (MAPs) and mainly expressed in neuronal cells. It hasbeen demonstrated that Tau may play an important role in regulating microtubule dynamic in neurons. Structurally and functionally, Tau protein composed of regulatory projection domain in N-terninus and microtubule-binding domain in C-terminus. It has been shown that the biological function of Tau protein was regulated by phosphorylation and dephosphorylation. In Alzheimer¡¦s disease (AD) brain, hyperphosphorylated Tau caused by over active kinases may contribute to the disassociation of Tau from microtubule and form the pathologically hallmarker, paired helical filaments (PHFs). The reason to study cdc2 and GSK3£] is two folds. First, both cdc2 and GSK3£] activities are raised abbrently in AD brain. Second, the phosphorylation sites of cdc2 and GSK3£] have been identified as those in PHFs.These prompted us to regard cdc2 and GSK3£] as candidates that hyperphosphorylated Tau in AD. In the following study, we used immunofluorescence analysis, co-immunoprecipitation and GST-fusion protein pull down assay to clarify the subcellular localization of Tau. We also shown that the interaction between tubulin withfull length Tau (Tau WT) and some Tau mutants that we found that not only Tau WT, but also N-terminus of Tau (Tau-N) and C-terminus of Tau (Tau-C) can bind to tubulin. Surprisingly, we observed that a fragment of N-terminus, Tau 122-244, localized in nucleus. Furthermore, we used tubulin assembly assay to test if tau or its mutants can promote tubulin assembly in vitro. Results showed that only Tau WT can promote tubulin assembly in vitro but not Tau-N or Tau-C. Although Tau-N or Tau-C can bind to tubulin in vivo and in vitro, these mutants did not remain the ability to promote tubulin assembly that suggested both functional domains, N-terminus and C-terminus of Tau, are necessary and essential for the biological function of Tau. On the other hand, we used of phosphorylation assay and site directed mutagenesis to demonstrate that T231 of Tau is one of important phosphorylation sites of cdc2 and GSK3£]. Finally, we used tubulin assembly assay to show that phosphorylated Tau by GSK3£] can negatively regulate the ability of Tau to promote tubulin assembly that indicated that the phosphorylation at T231 may play a role in regulating Tau.

Les microtubules-qui définissent la forme des axones, des cils et des flagelles, et qui servent de rails pour le transport intracellulaire-subissent de fortes contraintes exercées par les forces intracellulaires. La structure des microtubules et leur rigiditépeuvent en théorie être affectées par des contraintes physiques. Cependant, il reste à établir comment les microtubules tolèrent de telles forces et quelles sont les conséquences de ces forces sur la structure des microtubules. En utilisant un dispositif demicrofluidique, j’ai pu montrer que la rigidité des microtubules diminue progressivementà chaque cycle de courbure induit par des contraintes hydrodynamiques.Comme dans d'autres exemples de fatigue des matériaux, l'application de contraintes mécaniques sur des défauts pré-existants le long des microtubules est responsable de la génération de dommages plus étendus. Ce processus rend les microtubules moins rigides.J’ai pu aussi montrer que les microtubules endommagés peuvent se réparer en intégrant de nouveaux dimères de tubuline à leur surface et de récupérer ainsi leur rigidité initiale. Nos résultats démontrent que les microtubules sont des matériaux biologiquesayant des propriétés d’auto-réparation, et que la dynamique des microtubules ne se produit pas exclusivement à leurs extrémités. La mise en évidence de ces nouvelles propriétés permet de montrer comment les microtubules peuvent s’adapter à des contraintesmécaniques. / Microtubules—which define the shape of axons, cilia and flagella, and provide tracks for intracellular transport—can be highly bent by intracellular forces, and microtubule structure and stiffness are thought to be affected by physical constraints. Yet how microtubules tolerate the vast forces exerted on them remains unknown. Here, by using a microfluidic device, we show that microtubule stiffness decreases incrementally with each cycle of bending and release. Similar to other cases of material fatigue, the concentration of mechanical stresses on pre-existing defects in the microtubule lattice is responsible for the generation of more extensive damage, which further decreases microtubule stiffness. Strikingly, damaged microtubules were able to incorporate new tubulin dimers into their lattice and recover their initial stiffness. Our findings demonstrate that microtubules are ductile materials with self-healing properties, that their dynamics does not exclusively occur at their ends, and that their lattice plasticity enables the microtubules’ adaptation to mechanical stresses.

Axons are up-to-a-meter-long cable-like cellular processes of neurons. The proper function of nervous systems requires that axons grow and wire up correctly during development or regeneration. The uniquely challenging architecture of axons has to be sustained for an organism's lifetime, and renders them key lesion sites during healthy ageing, in injury and neurodegenerative diseases. Notably, axon degeneration is considered as the cause rather than consequence for neuron decay in the context of various neurodegenerative diseases. The structural backbones of axons are formed by parallel bundles of microtubules (MTs) which also provide the highways for life-sustaining long-distance transport between cell bodies and the growth cones or synaptic endings. To better understand axon development, regeneration, maintenance and degeneration during ageing, my PhD project has focused on mechanisms underpinning the regulation of MT bundles in axons. For this, I have capitalised on fast and genetically and experimentally amenable research possible in Drosophila neurons, both in primary culture and in vivo. I have used systematic combinatorial genetics and pharmacological approaches to unravel mechanisms and roles of actin as well as the cortical collapse factor Efa6 in MT regulation during axon formation and maintenance. I was able to gain a number of novel mechanisms contributing to the de novo alignment and maintenance of ordered MT bundles. First, it has been proposed that Spectraplakins (large actin-microtubule linkers) guide the extension of polymerising MTs along cortical F-actin, thus directly laying axonal MTs out into parallel bundles. Here, I have used manipulations of actin networks as well as hybrid constructs of Shot where the actin binding domain was replaced by actin associating domains of other molecules. My data strongly suggest that Shot's ABD domain has unique properties that can sense specific properties of F-actin networks, and this is important for its ability to appropriately regulate MT behaviours. Second, using combinations of actin and Shot manipulations, I found that Shot displays not only these actin-dependent guidance functions, but it displays novel actin-independent function in MT bundle maintenance for which I present a working hypothesis. Third, I found a novel and Shot-independent role of axonal actin in maintaining MTs and promoting axon growth, and my results suggest that these functions involve promotion of MT polymerisation. MT maintenance is therefore mediated through two complementary mechanisms involving Shot on the one hand and actin on the other, and simultaneous removal of Shot and actin leads to entire loss of axons. Finally, I have unravelled novel axonal functions of the cortical collapse factor Efa6 which serves as a check point in MT bundle maintenance by eliminating "off track" MTs that have escaped the axonal bundle organisation. In the absence of this factor, a gradual increase of disorganised, criss-crossed MTs occurs as a matter of days. These new mechanisms strongly suggest that different MT-regulatory mechanisms act in parallel in axons and complement each other in one common mechanism of MT bundle formation and maintenance. I propose here a local homeostasis model of axonal MT bundle maintenance which provides new ways to think about problems of ageing as well as a range of different neurodegenerative diseases.

Microtubules are essential for many dynamic processes occurring within eukaryotic cells including organelle and vesicular trafficking, motility of cilia and flagella, and mitosis. Microtubules operate in conjunction with the kinesin superfamily of microtubule-dependent motor proteins, which use the energy from ATP hydrolysis to "walk" along microtubule tracks, and in doing so generate force for the transport of cellular cargo and mitosis. The goal of this project was to define the microtubule interactions and regulation of two kinesin-like proteins (KLPs), the Homo sapiens mitotic kinesin-like protein-1 (HsMKLP-1) and the Arabidopsis thaliana kinesin-like calmodulin-binding protein (KCBP). Functional domains of HsMKLP-1 and KCBP were heterogeneously expressed in insect cells (HsMKLP-1) and/or E. coli (HsMKLP-1, KCBP) and used to examine the microtubule binding and ATPase activity of HsMKLP-1 and KCBP catalytic domains. Overall, the HsMKLP-1 catalytic domain was found to operate in a similar fashion to other KLPs with respect to microtubule binding and ATP hydrolysis, but HsMKLP-1 exhibited enhanced microtubule binding of the dimer and weaker affinity for ATP that functionally distinguishes it from other KLPs. HsMKLP-1 proteins were also used to generate HsMKLP-1 specific antibodies to be used as a tool for characterizing native HsMKLP-1. To define the role of nuclear localization in regulating the activity of HsMKLP-1 during interphase, sequences directing nuclear localization of HsMKLP-1 were identified. Mutation of the nuclear localization sequence 799PNGSRKRR806 to 799PNGSRTSR806 or removal of AA's 830-856 of HsMKLP-1, which contains the nuclear localization sequence 851PKRKKP856, were sufficient to abolish nuclear localization. In the absence of a functional nuclear localization sequence HsMKLP-1 localized to microtubule plus ends, suggesting that nuclear localization serves to limit the interaction of HsMKLP-1 with the interphase microtubule array. The KCBP catalytic domain, which contains a calmodulin-binding site, was used to determine the effect of Ca2+/calmodulin on the microtubule binding and ATPase activity of KCBP. Ca2+/calmodulin was found to inhibit the binding of KCBP to microtubules and reduced the motor's microtubule-stimulated ATPase activity, which suggests that Ca2+/calmodulin may modulate the activity of KCBP in vivo by regulating the motor's association with microtubules. / Ph. D.