Pharmacological disruption of the MID1/α4 interaction reduces mutant Huntingtin levels in primary neuronal cultures.
Expression of mutant Huntingtin (HTT) protein is central to the pathophysiology of Huntington's Disease (HD). The E3 ubiquitin ligase MID1 appears to have a key role in facilitating translation of the mutant HTT mRNA suggesting that interference with the function of this complex could be an attractive therapeutic approach. Here we describe a peptide that is able to disrupt the interaction between MID1 and the α4 protein, a regulatory subunit of protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A). By fusing this peptide to a sequence from the HIV-TAT protein we demonstrate that the peptide can disrupt the interaction within cells and show that this results in a decrease in levels of ribosomal S6 phosphorylation a…
MicroRNAs miR-19, miR-340, miR-374 and miR-542 regulate MID1 protein expression.
The MID1 ubiquitin ligase activates mTOR signaling and regulates mRNA translation. Misregulation of MID1 expression is associated with various diseases including midline malformation syndromes, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. While this indicates that MID1 expression must be tightly regulated to prevent disease states specific mechanisms involved have not been identified. We examined miRNAs to determine mechanisms that regulate MID1 expression. MicroRNAs (miRNA) are small non-coding RNAs that recognize specific sequences in their target mRNAs. Upon binding, miRNAs typically downregulate expression of these targets. Here, we identified four miRNAs, miR-19, miR-340, miR-374 and miR-542…
Translation of HTT mRNA with expanded CAG repeats is regulated by the MID1-PP2A protein complex.
Expansion of CAG repeats is a common feature of various neurodegenerative disorders, including Huntington's disease. Here we show that expanded CAG repeats bind to a translation regulatory protein complex containing MID1, protein phosphatase 2A and 40S ribosomal S6 kinase. Binding of the MID1-protein phosphatase 2A protein complex increases with CAG repeat size and stimulates translation of the CAG repeat expansion containing messenger RNA in a MID1-, protein phosphatase 2A- and mammalian target of rapamycin-dependent manner. Our data indicate that pathological CAG repeat expansions upregulate protein translation leading to an overproduction of aberrant protein and suggest that the MID1-com…
Deregulated Splicing Is a Major Mechanism of RNA-Induced Toxicity in Huntington's Disease.
Huntington's disease (HD) is caused by an expanded CAG repeat in the huntingtin (HTT) gene, translating into an elongated polyglutamine stretch. In addition to the neurotoxic mutant HTT protein, the mutant CAG repeat RNA can exert toxic functions by trapping RNA-binding proteins. While few examples of proteins that aberrantly bind to mutant HTT RNA and execute abnormal function in conjunction with the CAG repeat RNA have been described, an unbiased approach to identify the interactome of mutant HTT RNA is missing. Here, we describe the analysis of proteins that preferentially bind mutant HTT RNA using a mass spectrometry approach. We show that (I) the majority of proteins captured by mutant…
The E3 Ubiquitin Ligase MID1 Catalyzes Ubiquitination and Cleavage of Fu
Sonic Hedgehog (SHH)-GLI signalling plays an important role during embryogenesis and in tumorigenesis. The survival and growth of several types of cancer depend on autonomously activated SHH-GLI signalling. A protein complex containing the ubiquitin-ligase MID1 and protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) regulates the nuclear localization and transcriptional activity of GLI3, a transcriptional effector molecule of SHH, in cancer cell lines with autonomously activated SHH signalling. However, the exact molecular mechanisms that mediate the interaction between MID1 and GLI3 remained unknown. Here, we show that MID1 catalyses the ubiquitination and proteasomal cleavage of the GLI3-regulator Fu. Our data…