A gene-expression screen identifies a non-toxic sumoylation inhibitor that Mimics SUMO-less human LRH-1 in liver
- University of California, San Francisco, United States
- National Cancer Institute, United States
Abstract
SUMO-modification of nuclear proteins has profound effects on gene expression. However, non-toxic chemical tools that modulate sumoylation in cells are lacking. Here, to identify small molecule sumoylation inhibitors we developed a cell-based screen that focused on the well-sumoylated substrate, human Liver Receptor Homolog-1 (hLRH-1, NR5A2). Our primary gene-expression screen assayed two SUMO-sensitive transcripts, APOC3 and MUC1 that are upregulated by SUMO-less hLRH-1 or by siUBC9 knockdown, respectively. A polyphenol, tannic acid (TA) emerged as a potent sumoylation inhibitor in vitro (IC50 = 12.8 µM) and in cells. TA also increased hLRH-1 occupancy on SUMO-sensitive transcripts. Most significantly, when tested in humanized mouse primary hepatocytes, TA inhibits hLRH-1 sumoylation and induces SUMO-sensitive genes, thereby recapitulating the effects of expressing SUMO-less hLRH-1 in mouse liver. Our findings underscore the benefits of phenotypic screening for targeting post-translational modifications, and illustrate the potential utility of TA for probing the cellular consequences of sumoylation.
Article and author information
Author details
Reviewing Editor
- Peter Tontonoz, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, United States
Ethics
Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All of the animals were handled according to approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocols (#AN109147-01) of the University of California, San Francisco.Mice were euthanized in accordance with the UCSF Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee under Ingraham lab protocol.
Version history
- Received: May 26, 2015
- Accepted: October 20, 2015
- Accepted Manuscript published: December 11, 2015 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: January 27, 2016 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2015, Suzawa et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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A gene-expression screen identifies a non-toxic sumoylation inhibitor that Mimics SUMO-less human LRH-1 in liver
eLife 4:e09003.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.09003
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