dictyNews
Electronic Edition
Volume 35, number 13
Nov 5, 2010
Please submit abstracts of your papers as soon as they have been
accepted for publication by sending them to [log in to unmask]
or by using the form at
http://dictybase.org/db/cgi-bin/dictyBase/abstract_submit.
Back issues of dictyNews, the Dicty Reference database and other
useful information is available at dictyBase - http://dictybase.org.
Follow dictyBase on twitter:
http://twitter.com/dictybase
=========
Abstracts
=========
Functional dissection of adenylate cyclase r, an inducer of spore
encapsulation.
Zhi-hui Chen, Christina Schilde and Pauline Schaap*
College of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Dundee, United Kingdom
J.Biol.Chem., in press
Cyclic AMP acting on PKA controls sporulation and encystation in social
and solitary amoebas. In Dictyostelium discoideum, adenylate cyclase R
(ACR), is essential for spore encapsulation. In addition to its cyclase (AC)
domain, ACR harbours seven transmembrane helices, a histidine kinase
domain and two receiver domains. We investigated the role of these
domains in the regulation of AC activity. Expression of an ACR-YFP fusion
protein in acr- cells rescued their sporulation defective phenotype and
revealed that ACR is associated with the nuclear envelope and
endoplasmic reticulum. Loss of the transmembrane helices (deltaTM)
caused 60% reduction of AC activity, but deltaTM-ACR still rescued the
acr- phenotype. The isolated AC domain was properly expressed but
inactive. Mutation of three essential ATP-binding residues in the histidine
kinase domain did not affect the AC activity or phenotypic rescue.
Mutation of the essential phosphoryl-accepting aspartate in receivers
1, 2 or both had only modest effects on AC activity and did not affect
phenotypic rescue, indicating that AC activity is not critically regulated
by phosphorelay. Remarkably, the dimerizing histidine phospho-acceptor
subdomain, which in ACR lacks the canonical histidine for
autophosphorylation, was essential for AC activity. Transformation of
wild-type cells with an ACR allele (deltaCRA) that is truncated after
this domain inhibited AC activity of endogenous ACR and replicated
the acr- phenotype. Combined with the observation that the isolated AC
domain was inactive, the dominant-negative effect of deltaCRA strongly
suggests that the defunct phospho-acceptor domain acquired a novel
role in enforcing dimerization of the AC domain.
Submitted by Pauline Schaap [[log in to unmask]]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The C-module-binding factor supports the amplification of TRE5-A
retrotransposons in the Dictyostelium discoideum genome
Annika Bilzer, Heike Dölz, Alexander Reinhardt, Anika Schmith, Oliver Siol,
Thomas Winckler
Eukaryotic Cell, in press
Retrotransposable elements are molecular parasites that have invaded
the genomes of virtually all organisms. Although retrotransposons encode
essential proteins to mediate their amplification, they also require
assistance by host cell-encoded machineries that perform functions such
as DNA transcription and repair. The retrotransposon TRE5-A of the
social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum generates a notable amount of
both sense and antisense RNAs, which are generated from
element-internal promoters located in the A- module and the C-module,
respectively. We observed that TRE5-A retrotransposons depend on
the C-module-binding factor (CbfA) to maintain high steady-state levels
of TRE5-A transcripts and that CbfA supports the retrotransposition
activity of TRE5-A elements. The carboxy-terminal domain of CbfA was
found to be required and sufficient to mediate the accumulation of
TRE5-A transcripts, but it did not support productive retrotransposition
of TRE5-A. This result suggests different roles for CbfA protein domains
in the regulation of the TRE5-A retrotransposition frequency in
D. discoideum cells. Although CbfA binds to the C-module in vitro, the
factor regulates neither C-module nor A-module promoter activity in vivo.
We speculate that CbfA supports the amplification of TRE5-A
retrotransposons by suppressing the expression of a not yet identified
component of the cellular posttranscriptional gene silencing machinery.
Submitted by Thomas Winckler [[log in to unmask]]
==============================================================
[End dictyNews, volume 35, number 13]
|