OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: The objectives of this study are to 1) expand upon the paradigm of HK-D5 accelerated immune cell chemotaxis; 2) characterize the role of FXII in murine models of immune-mediated disease using FXII KO mice and a small molecule inhibitor of FXIIa. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: To test whether the addition of HK-D5 peptide would accelerate C-C chemokine receptor type 2 (CCR2)-mediated chemotaxis in vitro, a real-time transwell chemotaxis assay was developed utilizing human THP-1 monocyte cell line (Fig 1). For in vivo studies, both pharmacologic FXIIa antagonism and FXll KO mice were used. Genotyping, histopathological review, FXll protein expression, and active partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) measurements were used to phenotypically characterize FXII KO mice compared to C57BL/6 wild type mice (Fig 2). Subsequently, the FXll KO mice were studied in varied models of immune-mediated disease, including LPS-induced sepsis and experimental autoimmune encephalitis (EAE), to see if and how the absence of FXll can mitigate disease severity. The EAE model involved active immunization with myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) and measurement of established clinical disease severity scores. The LPS sepsis model involved an intraperitoneal injection of LPS followed by 48-hour monitoring of core body temperature using subdermal temperature transponders as a proxy for inflammatory events related to septic shock (Fig 3). RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: HK-D5 significantly accelerates CCR2-mediated chemotaxis compared to chemokine alone (p = 0.001) similar to HK-D5’s ability to accelerate CCR7-mediated chemotaxis as previously established. The FXll KO mice were backcrossed to the C57BL/6J background and confirmed by genotyping and complete absence of FXII protein in plasma. Compared to the control, FXII KO mice have a significantly prolonged aPTT without evidence of bleeding abnormalities, which confirms the expected phenotype previously described and recapitulates what is observed in Factor XII deficiency in humans. KO mice showed no significant gross or histopathological differences in secondary lymphoid structures compared to the control. Immunohistochemistry confirmed well-organized lymphoid structures with intact B- and T-cell populations. FXll KO mice are protected in LPS-induced septic shock and EAE models. Regarding the EAE model, FXIIa inhibition significantly reduced disease severity compared to control. In the LPS model, FXll KO mice recover within 24 hours after LPS-challenge measured subjectively and objectively by core body temperature measurement. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: The current study and previous findings suggest a novel immune signaling mechanism by which a peptide fragment of high molecular-weight kininogen (HK-D5) acts as an accelerant of both innate and adaptive immune cell chemotaxis in multiple immune contexts. This has broad implications regarding a mechanism of immune-mediated inflammation in a variety of disease states, which might be amenable to the targeting this pathway for therapeutic intent.
Phosphorylation regulates yeast spindle pole body (SPB) duplication and separation and likely regulates microtubule nucleation. We report a phosphoproteomic analysis using tandem mass spectrometry of enriched Saccharomyces cerevisiae SPBs for two cell cycle arrests, G1/S and the mitotic checkpoint, expanding on previously reported phosphoproteomic data sets. We present a novel phosphoproteomic state of SPBs arrested in G1/S by a cdc4-1 temperature-sensitive mutation, with particular focus on phosphorylation events on the γ-tubulin small complex (γ-TuSC). The cdc4-1 arrest is the earliest arrest at which microtubule nucleation has occurred at the newly duplicated SPB. Several novel phosphorylation sites were identified in G1/S and during mitosis on the microtubule nucleating γ-TuSC. These sites were analyzed in vivo by fluorescence microscopy and were shown to be required for proper regulation of spindle length. Additionally, in vivo analysis of two mitotic sites in Spc97 found that phosphorylation of at least one of these sites is required for progression through the cell cycle. This phosphoproteomic data set not only broadens the scope of the phosphoproteome of SPBs, it also identifies several γ-TuSC phosphorylation sites that influence microtubule formation.
Centrosomes, or spindle pole bodies (SPBs) in yeast, are vital mechanical hubs that maintain load-bearing attachments to microtubules during mitotic spindle assembly, spindle positioning, and chromosome segregation. However, the strength of microtubule-centrosome attachments is unknown, and the possibility that mechanical force might regulate centrosome function has scarcely been explored. To uncover how centrosomes sustain and regulate force, we purified SPBs from budding yeast and used laser trapping to manipulate single attached microtubules in vitro. Our experiments reveal that SPB-microtubule attachments are extraordinarily strong, rupturing at forces approximately fourfold higher than kinetochore attachments under identical loading conditions. Furthermore, removal of the calmodulin-binding site from the SPB component Spc110 weakens SPB-microtubule attachment in vitro and sensitizes cells to increased SPB stress in vivo. These observations show that calmodulin binding contributes to SPB mechanical integrity and suggest that its removal may cause pole delamination and mitotic failure when spindle forces are elevated. We propose that the very high strength of SPB-microtubule attachments may be important for spindle integrity in mitotic cells so that tensile forces generated at kinetochores do not cause microtubule detachment and delamination at SPBs.
Centrosomes are components of the mitotic spindle responsible for organizing microtubules and establishing a bipolar spindle for accurate chromosome segregation. In budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the centrosome is called the spindle pole body, a highly organized trilaminar structure embedded in the nuclear envelope. Here we describe a detailed protocol for the purification of fluorescently labeled spindle pole bodes from S. cerevisiae. Spindle pole bodies are purified from yeast using a TAP-tag purification followed by velocity sedimentation.This highly reproducible TAP-tag purification method improves upon previous techniques and expands the scope of in vitro characterization of yeast spindle pole bodies. The genetic flexibility of this technique allows for the study of spindle pole body mutants as well as the study of spindle pole bodies during different stages of the cell cycle. The ease and reproducibility of the technique make it possible to study spindle pole bodies using a variety of biochemical, biophysical, and microscopic techniques.
Centrosomes are vital mechanical hubs in cells. They nucleate microtubules and sustain load-bearing attachments to these microtubules during assembly of the mitotic spindle, segregation of chromosomes, and positioning of the nucleus. During these processes microtubule-centrosome attachments sustain considerable forces, and the number of attachments is regulated in correlation with the forces they sustain. However, their mechanical strength has never been directly measured, and the possibility that mechanical force may regulate their function has not been explored. To uncover how centrosomes sustain and regulate microtubule attachments, we purified centrosomes from budding yeast and used single-molecule laser trapping to manipulate single microtubules attached to centrosomes in vitro. Yeast centrosomes are ideal for biophysical studies, since their composition and structure are known more completely than in any other organism. Single-molecule laser trapping experiments, in which the force on individual microtubule-centrosome attachments was increased at a rate of 5 pN/s, revealed that individual centrosome-microtubule attachments sustain tensile loads of approximately 40 pN. This force is four times greater than the forces thought to be generated at a single kinetochore-microtubule attachment during mitosis. This result implies that a single microtubule-centrosome attachment is sufficient to support the segregation of an individual chromosome in yeast. We also found that mutations in the Spc110 protein, which is involved in binding microtubules to centrosomes, significantly (p = 0.004) weakened the strength of microtubule attachments compared to wild-type centrosomes. This reduced strength might explain why cells with this mutation are arrested by the Mad1 spindle-assembly checkpoint of mitosis, which implies that the mitotic spindle in these cells is unable to support enough tension to silence kinetochore-generated "wait signals." Further studies aim to reveal how specific protein components, molecular interfaces, and phosphorylation sites are involved in sustaining, sensing, and regulating the forces transmitted by microtubules.
Intact protein analysis via top-down mass spectrometry (MS) provides a birds eye view over the protein complexes and complex protein mixtures with the unique capability of characterizing protein variants, splice isoforms, and combinatorial post-translational modifications (PTMs). Here we applied capillary electrophoresis (CE) through a sheathless CE-electrospray ionization interface coupled to an LTQ Velos Orbitrap Elite mass spectrometer to analyze the Dam1 complex from Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We achieved a 100-fold increase in sensitivity compared to a reversed-phase liquid chromatography coupled MS analysis of recombinant Dam1 complex with a total loading of 2.5 ng (12 amol). N-terminal processing forms of individual subunits of the Dam1 complex were observed as well as their phosphorylation stoichiometry upon Mps1p kinase treatment.
To better understand the quantitative characteristics and structure of phenotypic diversity, we measured over 14,000 transcript, protein, metabolite, and morphological traits in 22 genetically diverse strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae . More than 50% of all measured traits varied significantly across strains [false discovery rate (FDR) = 5%]. The structure of phenotypic correlations is complex, with 85% of all traits significantly correlated with at least one other phenotype (median = 6, maximum = 328). We show how high-dimensional molecular phenomics data sets can be leveraged to accurately predict phenotypic variation between strains, often with greater precision than afforded by DNA sequence information alone. These results provide new insights into the spectrum and structure of phenotypic diversity and the characteristics influencing the ability to accurately predict phenotypes.
Material Supplemental http://genome.cshlp.org/content/suppl/2013/06/25/gr.155762.113.DC1.html References http://genome.cshlp.org/content/23/9/1496.full.html#ref-list-1 This article cites 46 articles, 10 of which can be accessed free at: Open Access Open Access option. Genome Research Freely available online through the License Commons Creative . http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ License (Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported), as described at , is available under a Creative Commons Genome Research This article, published in
Variation in RNA, protein, and metabolite levels among individuals is an important source of physiological and phenotypic differences within and between species. However, relatively little is known about the magnitude and genetic basis of these high-dimensional molecular phenotypes. Yeast provide an ideal model system for the genetic dissection of complex and quantitative traits, and whole-genome sequences are accumulating for dozens of Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains isolated from natural, industrial, and lab environments. We grew a diverse selection of sequenced strains in continuous culture and used a randomized and replicated study design. We exploited all the technologies in the Yeast Resource Center to obtain high quality and high coverage measurements of RNA, protein, metabolite, and morphological phenotypes. The resulting data sets provide a unique and powerful opportunity to combine comparative functional genomics data with comparative sequence analyses and delineate the genetic architecture of complex and quantitative phenotypes in yeast. Our initial analyses indicate that a high degree of strain-to-strain variation exists at all systems levels, and that this variation largely correlates with strain relatedness as measured by sequence comparison. Variation in RNA levels correlates with the corresponding peptides and related metabolites in complex ways. These experiments have resulted in an important large-scale data set of thousands of quantitative traits collected in a carefully designed randomized study, which will provide novel insights into the magnitude and patterns of natural variation of molecular and morphological phenotypes, as well as preliminary insights into their genetic basis.
Here we report the use of capillary isoelectric focusing under native conditions for the separation of protein complex isoforms and subcomplexes. Using biologically relevant HIS-tag and FLAG-tag purified protein complexes, we demonstrate the separations of protein complex isoforms of the mammalian target of rapamycin complex (mTORC1 and 2) and the subcomplexes and different phosphorylation states of the Dam1 complex. The high efficiency capillary isoelectric focusing separation allowed for resolution of protein complexes and subcomplexes similar in size and biochemical composition. By performing separations with native buffers and reduced temperature (15 degrees C) we were able to maintain the complex integrity of the more thermolabile mTORC2 during isoelectric focusing and detection (<45 min). Increasing the separation temperature allowed us to monitor dissociation of the Dam1 complex into its subcomplexes (25 degrees C) and eventually its individual protein components (30 degrees C). The separation of two different phosphorylation states of the Dam1 complex, generated from an in vitro kinase assay with Mps1 kinase, was straightforward due to the large pI shift upon multiple phosphorylation events. The separation of the protein complex isoforms of mTORC, on the other hand, required the addition of a small pI range (4-6.5) of ampholytes to improve resolution and stability of the complexes. We show that native capillary isoelectric focusing is a powerful method for the difficult separations of large, similar, unstable protein complexes. This method shows potential for differentiation of protein complex isoform and subcomplex compositions, post-translational modifications, architectures, stabilities, equilibria, and relative abundances under biologically relevant conditions.
We report a fluorescence-based assay for measuring the affinity of microtubule binding proteins for microtubules. The affinity of any fluorescently tagged protein for taxol-stabilized microtubules can be measured with this assay. We describe the assay and provide a detailed protocol. Using this assay, we found that the affinity of the Dam1 complex for microtubules is decreased by the presence of free unpolymerized tubulin and is sensitive to the salt concentration in the binding buffer. These effects may account for the previous differences in binding affinities reported.
During mitosis, kinetochores form persistent attachments to microtubule tips and undergo corrective detachment in response to phosphorylation by Ipl1 (Aurora B) kinase1. The Dam1 complex is required to establish and maintain bi-oriented attachment to microtubule tips in vivo, and it contains multiple sites phosphorylated by Ipl1 (Refs 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10). Moreover, a number of kinetochore-like functions can be reconstituted in vitro with pure Dam1 complex11,12,13,14. These functions are believed to derive from the ability of the complex to self-assemble into rings12,13,15,16,17. Here we show that rings are not necessary for dynamic microtubule attachment, Ipl1-dependent modulation of microtubule affinity or the ability of Dam1 to move processively with disassembling microtubule tips. Using two fluorescence-based assays, we found that the complex exhibited a high affinity for microtubules (Kd of approximately 6 nM) that was reduced by phosphorylation at Ser 20, a single Ipl1 target residue in Dam1. Moreover, individual complexes underwent one-dimensional diffusion along microtubules and detached 2.5-fold more frequently after phosphorylation by Ipl1. Particles consisting of one to four Dam1 complexes — too few to surround a microtubule — were captured and carried by disassembling tips. Thus, even a small number of binding elements could provide a dynamic, phosphoregulated microtubule attachment and thereby facilitate accurate chromosome segregation.
BACKGROUND:Duplicated chromosomes are equally segregated to daughter cells by a bipolar mitotic spindle during cell division. By metaphase, sister chromatids are coupled to microtubule (MT) plus ends from opposite poles of the bipolar spindle via kinetochores. Here we describe a phosphorylation event that promotes the coupling of kinetochores to microtubule plus ends.RESULTS:Dam1 is a kinetochore component that directly binds to microtubules. We identified DAM1-765, a dominant allele of DAM1, in a genetic screen for mutations that increase stress on the spindle pole body (SPB) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. DAM1-765 contains the single mutation S221F. We show that S221 is one of six Dam1 serines (S13, S49, S217, S218, S221, and S232) phosphorylated by Mps1 in vitro. In cells with single mutations S221F, S218A, or S221A, kinetochores in the metaphase spindle form tight clusters that are closer to the SPBs than in a wild-type cell. Five lines of experimental evidence, including localization of spindle components by fluorescence microscopy, measurement of microtubule dynamics by fluorescence redistribution after photobleaching, and reconstructions of three-dimensional structure by electron tomography, combined with computational modeling of microtubule behavior strongly indicate that, unlike wild-type kinetochores, Dam1-765 kinetochores do not colocalize with an equal number of plus ends. Despite the uncoupling of the kinetochores from the plus ends of MTs, the DAM1-765 cells are viable, complete the cell cycle with the same kinetics as wild-type cells, and biorient their chromosomes as efficiently as wild-type cells.CONCLUSIONS:We conclude that phosphorylation of Dam1 residues S218 and S221 by Mps1 is required for efficient coupling of kinetochores to MT plus ends. We find that efficient plus-end coupling is not required for (1) maintenance of chromosome biorientation, (2) maintenance of tension between sister kinetochores, or (3) chromosome segregation.
Interpreting genome sequences requires the functional analysis of thousands of predicted proteins, many of which are uncharacterized and without obvious homologs. To assess whether the roles of large sets of uncharacterized genes can be assigned by targeted application of a suite of technologies, we used four complementary protein-based methods to analyze a set of 100 uncharacterized but essential open reading frames (ORFs) of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. These proteins were subjected to affinity purification and mass spectrometry analysis to identify copurifying proteins, two-hybrid analysis to identify interacting proteins, fluorescence microscopy to localize the proteins, and structure prediction methodology to predict structural domains or identify remote homologies. Integration of the data assigned function to 48 ORFs using at least two of the Gene Ontology (GO) categories of biological process, molecular function, and cellular component; 77 ORFs were annotated by at least one method. This combination of technologies, coupled with annotation using GO, is a powerful approach to classifying genes.