Cdc14B depletion leads to centriole amplification, and its overexpression prevents unscheduled centriole duplication

Centrosome duplication is tightly controlled in coordination with DNA replication. The molecular mechanism of centrosome duplication remains unclear. Previous studies found that a fraction of human proline-directed phosphatase Cdc14B associates with centrosomes. However, Cdc14B's involvement in centrosome cycle control has never been explored. Here, we show that depletion of Cdc14B by RNA interference leads to centriole amplification in both HeLa and normal human fibroblast BJ and MRC-5 cells. Induction of Cdc14B expression through a regulatable promoter significantly attenuates centriole amplification in prolonged S phase-arrested cells and proteasome inhibitor Z-L(3)VS-treated cells. This inhibitory function requires centriole-associated Cdc14B catalytic activity. Together, these results suggest a potential function for Cdc14B phosphatase in maintaining the fidelity of centrosome duplication cycle.     

An unusual arrangement of pur and lpx genes in the photosynthetic purple sulfur bacterium Allochromatium vinosum

The nucleotide sequence of a 1634 bp DNA fragment from the photosynthetic purple sulfur bacterium Allochromatium vinosum contains one complete and two partial open reading frames. Sequence comparisons to genes from other organisms suggest that this A. vinosum DNA fragment contains, starting from the 5 end, the following: (1) 234 bp at the 3 end of the A. vinosum purH gene, coding for 78 amino acids at the C-terminus of the bi-functional 5-phosphoribosyl-5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide formyltransferase/IMP cyclohydrolase (EC 2.1.2.3), an enzyme involved in de novo purine biosynthesis; (2) 777 bp of the A. vinosum lpxA gene, coding for all 259 amino acids of the UDP-N-acetylglucosamine-O-acyltransferase, an enzyme involved in lipid A biosynthesis; and (3) 567 bp at the 5 end of the A. vinosum purD gene, coding for 189 amino acids at the N-terminus of 5-phosphoribosyl glycinamide synthetase (EC 6.3.4.13), a second enzyme involved in de novo purine biosynthesis. The presence of a gene coding for an enzyme involved in lipid A biosynthesis between two genes coding for enzymes of the de novo purine biosynthesis pathway represents a unique arrangement of these genes.     

Vault poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase is associated with mammalian telomerase and is dispensable for telomerase function and vault structure in vivo

Vault poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (VPARP) was originally identified as a minor protein component of the vault ribonucleoprotein particle, which may be involved in molecular assembly or subcellular transport. In addition to the association of VPARP with the cytoplasmic vault particle, subpopulations of VPARP localize to the nucleus and the mitotic spindle, indicating that VPARP may have other cellular functions. We found that VPARP was associated with telomerase activity and interacted with exogenously expressed telomerase-associated protein 1 (TEP1) in human cells. To study the possible role of VPARP in telomerase and vault complexes in vivo, mVparp-deficient mice were generated. Mice deficient in mVparp were viable and fertile for up to five generations, with no apparent changes in telomerase activity or telomere length. Vaults purified from mVparp-deficient mouse liver appeared intact, and no defect in association with other vault components was observed. Mice deficient in mTep1, whose disruption alone does not affect telomere function but does affect the stability of vault RNA, showed no additional telomerase or telomere-related phenotypes when the mTep1 deficiency was combined with an mVparp deficiency. These data suggest that murine mTep1 and mVparp, alone or in combination, are dispensable for normal development, telomerase catalysis, telomere length maintenance, and vault structure in vivo.     

1Hepatitis C virus NS5A protein modulates c-Jun N-terminal kinase through interaction with tumor necrosis factor receptor-associated factor 2

The nonstructural 5A (NS5A) protein of hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a phosphoprotein possessing various functions. We have previously reported that the HCV NS5A protein interacts with tumor necrosis factor (TNF) receptor-associated factor (TRAF) domain of TRAF2 (Park, K.-J., Choi, S.-H., Lee, S. Y., Hwang, S. B., and Lai, M. M. C. (2002) J. Biol. Chem. 277, 13122-13128). Both TNF-alpha- and TRAF2-mediated nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-kappaB) activations were inhibited by NS5A-TRAF2 interaction. Because TRAF2 is required for the activation of both NF-kappaB and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), we investigated HCV NS5A protein for its potential capacity to modulate TRAF2-mediated JNK activity. Using in vitro kinase assay, we have found that NS5A protein synergistically activated both TNF-alpha- and TRAF2-mediated JNK in human embryonic kidney 293T cells. Furthermore, synergism of NS5A-mediated JNK activation was inhibited by dominant-negative form of MEK kinase 1. Our in vivo binding data show that NS5A does not inhibit interaction between TNF receptor-associated death domain and TRAF2 protein, indicating that NS5A and TRAF2 may form a ternary complex with TNF receptor-associated death domain. These results indicate that HCV NS5A protein modulates TNF signaling of the host cells and may play a role in HCV pathogenesis.     

Network-based pipeline for analyzing MS data: an application toward liver cancer

Current limitations in proteome analysis by high-throughput mass spectrometry (MS) approaches have sometimes led to incomplete (or inconclusive) data sets being published or unpublished. In this work, we used an iTRAQ reference data on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) to design a two-stage functional analysis pipeline to widen and improve the proteome coverage and, subsequently, to unveil the molecular changes that occur during HCC progression in human tumorous tissue. The first involved functional cluster analysis by incorporating an expansion step on a cleaned integrated network. The second used an in-house developed pathway database where recovery of shared neighbors was followed by pathway enrichment analysis. In the original MS data set, over 500 proteins were detected from the tumors of 12 male patients, but in this paper we reported an additional 1000 proteins after application of our bioinformatics pipeline. Through an integrative effort of network cleaning, community finding methods, and network analysis, we also uncovered several biologically interesting clusters implicated in HCC. We established that HCC transition from a moderate to poor stage involved densely connected clusters that comprised of PCNA, XRCC5, XRCC6, PARP1, PRKDC, and WRN. From our pathway enrichment analyses, it appeared that the HCC moderate stage, unlike the poor stage, is enriched in proteins involved in immune responses, thus suggesting the acquisition of immuno-evasion. Our strategy illustrates how an original oncoproteome could be expanded to one of a larger dynamic range where current technology limitations prevent/limit comprehensive proteome characterization.     

Proteomics signature profiling (PSP): a novel contextualization approach for cancer proteomics

Traditional proteomics analysis is plagued by the use of arbitrary thresholds resulting in large loss of information. We propose here a novel method in proteomics that utilizes all detected proteins. We demonstrate its efficacy in a proteomics screen of 5 and 7 liver cancer patients in the moderate and late stage, respectively. Utilizing biological complexes as a cluster vector, and augmenting it with submodules obtained from partitioning an integrated and cleaned protein-protein interaction network, we calculate a Proteomics Signature Profile (PSP) for each patient based on the hit rates of their reported proteins, in the absence of fold change thresholds, against the cluster vector. Using this, we demonstrated that moderate- and late-stage patients segregate with high confidence. We also discovered a moderate-stage patient who displayed a proteomics profile similar to other poor-stage patients. We identified significant clusters using a modified version of the SNet approach. Comparing our results against the Proteomics Expansion Pipeline (PEP) on which the same patient data was analyzed, we found good correlation. Building on this finding, we report significantly more clusters (176 clusters here compared to 70 in PEP), demonstrating the sensitivity of this approach. Gene Ontology (GO) terms analysis also reveals that the significant clusters are functionally congruent with the liver cancer phenotype. PSP is a powerful and sensitive method for analyzing proteomics profiles even when sample sizes are small. It does not rely on the ratio scores but, rather, whether a protein is detected or not. Although consistency of individual proteins between patients is low, we found the reported proteins tend to hit clusters in a meaningful and informative manner. By extracting this information in the form of a Proteomics Signature Profile, we confirm that this information is conserved and can be used for (1) clustering of patient samples, (2) identification of significant clusters based on real biological complexes, and (3) overcoming consistency and coverage issues prevalent in proteomics data sets.     

Dual-tagging system for the affinity purification of mammalian protein complexes

Although affinity purification coupled with mass spectrometry (MS) provides a powerful tool to study protein-protein interactions, this strategy has encountered numerous difficulties when adapted to mammalian cells. Here we describe a Gateway-compatible dual-tag affinity purification system that integrates regulatable expression, tetracysteine motifs, and various combinations ofaffinity tags to facilitate the cloning, detection, and purification of bait proteins and their interacting partners. Utilizing the human telomere binding protein TRF2 as a benchmark, we demonstrate bait protein recoveries upwards of approximately 16% from as little as 1-7 x 10(7) cells and successfully identify known TRF2 interacting proteins, suggesting that our dual-tag affinity purification approach is a capable new tool for expanding the capacity to explore mammalian proteomic networks.     

夜行性昆虫微光视觉行为及其视觉适应机制

作为昆虫种群的重要组成部分,夜行性昆虫成功进化出了与其生存环境相适应的感觉机制,普遍认为夜行性昆虫主要依靠嗅觉和机械性感受等来探索环境,其视觉器官发生了退化或功能丧失.近年来,随着红外夜视、视网膜电位(electroretinogram,ERG)和视觉神经等生物新技术的应用,昆虫视觉生态学研究出现了突破性进展,自200...