HSF-1 activates the ubiquitin proteasome system to promote non-apoptotic developmental cell death in C. elegans
Abstract
Apoptosis is a prominent metazoan cell death form. Yet, mutations in apoptosis regulators cause only minor defects in vertebrate development, suggesting that another developmental cell death mechanism exists. While some non-apoptotic programs have been molecularly characterized, none appear to control developmental cell-culling. Linker-cell-type death (LCD) is a morphologically conserved non-apoptotic cell death process operating in C. elegans and vertebrate development, and is therefore a compelling candidate process complementing apoptosis. However, details of LCD execution are not known. Here we delineate a molecular-genetic pathway governing LCD in C. elegans. Redundant activities of antagonistic Wnt signals, a temporal-control pathway, and MAPKK signaling control HSF-1, a conserved stress-activated transcription factor. Rather than protecting cells, HSF-1 promotes their demise by activating components of the ubiquitin proteasome system, including the E2-ligase LET-70/UBE2D2 functioning with E3 components CUL-3, RBX-1, BTBD2, and SIAH-1. Our studies uncover design similarities between LCD and developmental apoptosis, and provide testable predictions for analyzing LCD in vertebrates.
Article and author information
Author details
Reviewing Editor
- Oliver Hobert, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Columbia University, United States
Version history
- Received: November 4, 2015
- Accepted: March 7, 2016
- Accepted Manuscript published: March 8, 2016 (version 1)
- Accepted Manuscript updated: March 9, 2016 (version 2)
- Version of Record published: March 30, 2016 (version 3)
Copyright
© 2016, Kinet 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.
Metrics
-
- 3,455
- views
-
- 782
- downloads
-
- 19
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Further reading
-
- Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
- Cell Biology
Mediator of ERBB2-driven Cell Motility 1 (MEMO1) is an evolutionary conserved protein implicated in many biological processes; however, its primary molecular function remains unknown. Importantly, MEMO1 is overexpressed in many types of cancer and was shown to modulate breast cancer metastasis through altered cell motility. To better understand the function of MEMO1 in cancer cells, we analyzed genetic interactions of MEMO1 using gene essentiality data from 1028 cancer cell lines and found multiple iron-related genes exhibiting genetic relationships with MEMO1. We experimentally confirmed several interactions between MEMO1 and iron-related proteins in living cells, most notably, transferrin receptor 2 (TFR2), mitoferrin-2 (SLC25A28), and the global iron response regulator IRP1 (ACO1). These interactions indicate that cells with high MEMO1 expression levels are hypersensitive to the disruptions in iron distribution. Our data also indicate that MEMO1 is involved in ferroptosis and is linked to iron supply to mitochondria. We have found that purified MEMO1 binds iron with high affinity under redox conditions mimicking intracellular environment and solved MEMO1 structures in complex with iron and copper. Our work reveals that the iron coordination mode in MEMO1 is very similar to that of iron-containing extradiol dioxygenases, which also display a similar structural fold. We conclude that MEMO1 is an iron-binding protein that modulates iron homeostasis in cancer cells.
-
- Cell Biology
- Chromosomes and Gene Expression
Heat stress is a major threat to global crop production, and understanding its impact on plant fertility is crucial for developing climate-resilient crops. Despite the known negative effects of heat stress on plant reproduction, the underlying molecular mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here, we investigated the impact of elevated temperature on centromere structure and chromosome segregation during meiosis in Arabidopsis thaliana. Consistent with previous studies, heat stress leads to a decline in fertility and micronuclei formation in pollen mother cells. Our results reveal that elevated temperature causes a decrease in the amount of centromeric histone and the kinetochore protein BMF1 at meiotic centromeres with increasing temperature. Furthermore, we show that heat stress increases the duration of meiotic divisions and prolongs the activity of the spindle assembly checkpoint during meiosis I, indicating an impaired efficiency of the kinetochore attachments to spindle microtubules. Our analysis of mutants with reduced levels of centromeric histone suggests that weakened centromeres sensitize plants to elevated temperature, resulting in meiotic defects and reduced fertility even at moderate temperatures. These results indicate that the structure and functionality of meiotic centromeres in Arabidopsis are highly sensitive to heat stress, and suggest that centromeres and kinetochores may represent a critical bottleneck in plant adaptation to increasing temperatures.