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The genetic defects that results in TAL1 oncogene activation are commonly seen in leukemic cells of the patient with T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia ( T-ALL ). The ectopic expression of TAL1 oncoprotein perturbs the development of T-cell, hence promotes the formation of leukemia. TAL1 gene encodes proteins with basic helix-loop-helix ( bHLH ) domain, a protein dimerization and DNA binding domain. In T-ALL cells, two Tal1 proteins, pp42(1-331 amino acids) and pp22(176-331 amino acids) are produced that both contain bHLH domain. Both proteins interact with immunoglobulin gene enhancer binding protein, E12/E47 to form DNA-binding heterodimers, that can bind to consensus E-box DNA sequence AACAGATGGT. Phosphorylation of S122 residue modulates the trans-activation potential of Tal1 protein. In addition, S172 is an inducible c-AMP dependent protein kinase (PKA) phosphorylation site in vivo. The phosphorylation of TAL1 S172 upon stimulation by forskolin can increase the DNA binding of E12-Tal1 heterodimer. We used site-directed mutagenesis to investigate the effect of S194,S224 mutation on the function of truncated Tal1 oncoprotein.Mutant Tal1 and E12 proteins expression plasmids were constructed and introduced into COS-1 cells by cotransfection. Tal1 and E12 protein expression in transfected cell were evaluated by Western blotting. The protein-DNA interaction were evaluated by electrophorectic mobility shift assay. The mutation of S194 and S224 of Tal1 protein all resulted in the loss of DNA-binding complex formation. This data indicated that these serine residues are essential for bHLH function. However, the phosphorylation status of these two residues in vivo, and what kinase is responsible for the phosphorylation of these residues, await further investigation.

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by Chan Wah Lun. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 252-260). / Acknowledgments --- p.i / Abstract --- p.ii / Contents --- p.vi / Naming of TCS mutants and modified TCS protein --- p.x / Abbreviations --- p.xi / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Physical and chemical properties of Trichosanthin --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Biological activities of Trichosanthin --- p.3 / Chapter 1.3 --- Renal tubular reabsorption and nephrotoxicity of Trichosanthin --- p.10 / Chapter 1.4 --- Objective and strategies of study --- p.11 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Materials and methods --- p.19 / Chapter 2.1 --- General Techniques --- p.19 / Chapter 2.2 --- Site directed mutagenesis of Trichosanthin --- p.21 / Chapter 2.3 --- DNA sequencing --- p.37 / Chapter 2.4 --- Overexpression of modified Trichosanthin in E. coli --- p.42 / Chapter 2.5 --- Purification of modified Trichosanthin --- p.43 / Chapter 2.6 --- Breaking of Disulphide bridge between modified TCS --- p.44 / Chapter 2.7 --- Coupling of DX T40 to modified Trichosanthin --- p.44 / Chapter 2.8 --- Biological activities of modified Trichosanthin and Dextran-modified trichosantin conjugates --- p.46 / Chapter 2.9 --- Immunogenicity of modified Trichosanthin and Dextran-trichosanthin conjugates --- p.50 / Chapter 2.10 --- Nephrotoxicity of Trichosanthin and Dextran-trichosanthin conjugates --- p.53 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Construction of TCS mutants --- p.61 / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.61 / Chapter 3.2 --- Method --- p.61 / Chapter 3.3 --- Results --- p.62 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Construction of K173C mutant --- p.62 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Construction of R29C mutant --- p.64 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- Construction of K173C R29C double mutant --- p.65 / Chapter 3.4 --- Discussion --- p.66 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- "Expression,Purification and Ribosome- inactivating activities of Modified Trichosanthin proteins" --- p.87 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.87 / Chapter 4.2 --- Method --- p.87 / Chapter 4.3 --- Results --- p.88 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- "Expression, purification and ribosome-inactivating activity of K173C" --- p.88 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- "Expression ,purification and ribosome-inactivating activity of R29C" --- p.89 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- "Expression, purification and ribosome-inactivating activity of K173C R29C" --- p.90 / Chapter 4.4 --- Discussion --- p.91 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Coupling of Dextran T40 to modified Trichosanthin --- p.108 / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.108 / Chapter 5.2 --- Method --- p.109 / Chapter 5.3 --- Results --- p.109 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Coupling of R29C --- p.109 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Coupling of K173C --- p.111 / Chapter 5.3.3 --- Coupling of R29CK173C --- p.111 / Chapter 5.4 --- Discussion --- p.111 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- Biological Activities of modified Trichosanthin and Dextran-modified trichosanthin conjugates --- p.128 / Chapter 6.1 --- Introduction --- p.128 / Chapter 6.2 --- Method --- p.128 / Chapter 6.3 --- Results --- p.130 / Chapter 6.3.1 --- In vivo Biological activity- Mid-term abortifacient activity --- p.130 / Chapter 6.3.2 --- In vitro biological activities / Chapter 6.3.2a --- Ribosome-inactivating activity --- p.131 / Chapter 6.3.2b --- Anti-tumour activity --- p.132 / Chapter 6.4 --- Discussion --- p.133 / Chapter Chapter 7 --- Immunogenicity of Dextran-modified trichosanthin conjugates --- p.156 / Chapter 7.1 --- Introduction --- p.156 / Chapter 7.2 --- Method --- p.157 / Chapter 7.3 --- Results / Chapter 7.3.1 --- Immunogenicity without denaturation of protein --- p.158 / Chapter 7.3.2 --- Immunogenicity with denaturation of protein --- p.161 / Chapter 7.4 --- Discussion --- p.162 / Chapter Chapter 8 --- Nephrotoxicity of Trichosanthin and Dextran-Trichosanthin conjugates --- p.199 / Chapter 8.1 --- Introduction --- p.200 / Chapter 8.2 --- Method --- p.202 / Chapter 8.3 --- Results --- p.202 / Chapter 8.3.1 --- Functional study on nephrotoxicity of Trichosanthin --- p.202 / Chapter 8.3.2 --- Morphological study on the nephrotoxicity of Trichosanthin --- p.203 / Chapter 8.3.3 --- The effect of coupling of Dextran T40 on the nephrotoxicity of Trichosanthin --- p.206 / Chapter 8.4 --- Discussion --- p.207 / Chapter Chapter 9 --- General Discussion --- p.244 / References --- p.252

Transcriptional regulation is a determinant of stability of recombinant protein production in CHO cells. Fundamental studies of recombinant gene transcription in relation to chromatin environment and promoter regulation are important for CHO cell line development and selection. This study has developed a methodology based on a cell/vector system to study recombinant transcription and expression stability of different promoters and/or proteins in the similar genomic environment. The CHO-FRT mini-pools developed in this project were mini-pools of CHO-S cell lines containing Flp Recombination Target (FRT) sites with ß-galactosidase gene, under the influence of a SV40 promoter. Continuous culture of these mini-pools for 8 weeks using a robotic system demonstrated that 20% of the mini-pools studied revealed an unstable profile (with 30% loss of protein expression). Two of these mini-pools with different characteristics, CHO-FRT 1 (low producer/unstable) and CHO-FRT 108 (high producer/stable), were selected to be used on the study of influence of SV40 and CMV promoters in long-term recombinant expression. Genes encoding fluorescent proteins were integrated in a site-directed manner under the influence of SV40 or CMV promoters. A sub-clonal population of the top 10% yellow fluorescent protein (YFP) expressing cells of each mini-pool/promoter combination was selected by cell sorting and cultured for 4 weeks. During this period protein expression was monitored by flow cytometry and compared between both promoters. The results revealed that both SV40 and CMV promoters had an unstable expression with different degrees of instability and long-term expressing behaviours. For CMV, instability was considerably high displaying a long-term logarithmic loss of 50-80% of productivity while for SV40 the loss of productivity observed was only 40-45% with a linear behaviour during long-term culture. The vector system generated contained an MS2-RNA tag sequence cloned 3'- of the recombinant gene to track the recombinant mRNA by using the MS2/MCP-GFP system. This study showed the development of a protocol to measure the transcriptional output of recombinant promoters in CHO cells. The results showed background signal in CHO cells that requires further optimisation studies to allow the direct live cell image quantification of the transcriptional activity of recombinant promoters. Although not yet optimised, the successful combination of site-directed integration with recombinant mRNA tagging method has the potential to become a valuable tool to study the mechanisms of transcriptional activity and stability of transcription driven by different promoters in CHO cells.

Nuclear protein KLIP1 cooperates with myeloid leukemia factor 1 (MLF1) to inhibit the programmed cell death resulting in tumor formation. It also inhibits the activity of thymidine kinase promoter of Kaposi¡¦s sarcoma-associated Herpes Virus. KLIP1 functions as a centromere protein, hence acquires its name as CENP-U or CENP-50, to regulate the separation of sister-chromatids during mitosis. These results indicate that KLIP1 plays important roles in regulation of transcription and cell cycle. In this study, six potential SUMO modification sites, K33, K63, K126, K127, K185 and K210, were identified bioinformatically using SUMOplot. Many reports address that SUMO modification alters the transcriptional activity, protein-protein interaction, the subcellular localization and stability of its target protein. Recent data suggest that SUMO is required for centromere binding protein to mediate proper mitotic spindle attachment to the kinetochore, and previous research suggest that there has a SUMO-interaction motif (SIM) in KLIP1 protein sequence. To reveal the interaction between KLIP1 and SUMO-1, and study its effects on KLIP1 function, we co-express GFP-KLIP1 and His-tagged SUMO-1 in HEK 293 cells. After affinity purification of SUMOylated proteins from transfected cells using nickel conjugated beads and subsequent western blotted with anti-GFP. The results indicated the interaction between KLIP1 and SUMO-1 in co-transfected cells. Our confocal microscopy imaging also found colocalization of GFP-KLIP1 with RFP-SUMO-1 nuclear foci. In addition, we failed to detect the interaction between SUMO-1 and mutant KLIP1-M6 ,whose six potential SUMO modified lysine residues were mutated to arginine. Furthermore, we found a distinct nuclear localization of GFP-KLIP1-M6 as compared to the image of wildtype GFP-KLIP1, which show a significant higher frequency of colocalization with RFP-SUMO-1 foci. Taken together, our data suggest the interaction between KLIP1 and SUMO-1 may be related to these six potential lysine residues, which upon mutation blocks its colocalization with SUMO-1 in nuclear foci. The biological significance of their interaction are awaits for further investigation.

Abstract: TSG101 is a tumor susceptibility gene exhibits multiple biological function, including the regulation of cell progression, intracellular protein sorting and membrane trafficking, and transcription activity of nuclear recptor such as estrogen recptor. TSG101 contains an UBC domain which is homologous to that in ubiquitin conjugating E2 enzyme. However, it lacks an essential cysteine residue, which is essential for catalytic activity. Cellular protein ubiquitination serves as a signal for protein degradation or sorting into multivesicular body. UBC domain of TSG101 was proved to contain amino acid residues that are important for its interaction with ubquitin (residues V43, N46, D46 and F88) and PTAP sequence found in the late domain of HIV gag protein (residues Y63, M95, V141). SUMO is an ubquitin-like modifier which can modify cellular protein harbors £ZKXE amino acid sequence, thereby change its subcellular localization and biological activities. TSG101 protein contains K98, K243, K264 and K269 residues that localize in potential SUMO modification site. Our preliminary data indicated that TSG101 colocalize with SUMO in nucleus. It is interesting to know whether TSG101 is sumoylated, and its functional significance. In this thesis, a series of site-directed mutageneic mutant HA and GFP-tagged expression plasmids which contain mutation of the above mentioned functional related amino acid residues were constructed for future TSG101 functional studies.