In vivo analysis of Drosophila deoxyribonucleoside kinase function in cell cycle, cell survival and anti-cancer drugs resistance.

In vitro studies have shown that Drosophila melanogaster has a highly efficient single deoxyribonucleoside kinase (dNK) multisubstrate enzyme. dNK is related to the mammalian Thymidine Kinase 2 (TK2) group involved in the nucleotide synthesis salvage pathway. To study the dNK function in vivo, we constructed transgenic Drosophila strains and impaired the nucleotide de novo synthesis pathway, using antifolates such as aminopterin. Our results show that dNK overexpression rescues both cell death and cell cycle arrest triggered by this anti-cancer drug, and confers global resistance on the fly. Moreover, we show that fly viability and growth depend on the exquisite ratio between dNK expression and its substrate thymidine (dT) in the medium, and that increased dT concentrations trigger apoptosis and a decrease in body mass when dNK is mis-expressed. Finally, dNK expression, unlike that of TK2, is cell cycle dependent and under the control of CyclinE and the dE2F1 transcription factor involved in the G1/S transition. dNK is therefore functionally more closely related to mammalian TK1 than to TK2. This strongly suggests that dNK plays a role in cell proliferation in physiological conditions.

A novel association of the SMN protein with two major non-ribosomal nucleolar proteins and its implication in spinal muscular atrophy.

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is caused by the loss of functional survival motor neuron 1 (SMN1) protein. This ubiquitously expressed protein is a component of a novel complex immunodetected in both the cytoplasm and the nucleus, which is associated with complexes involved in mRNA splicing, ribosome biogenesis and transcription. Here, we study a mutant protein corresponding to the N-terminal half of the protein that is encoded by the SMA frameshift mutation SMN 472del5. We show by confocal microscopy that the resulting mutant protein exhibits various distribution patterns in different transiently transfected COS cells. The mutant distributes into the nucleoplasm and/or the nucleolus, whereas the normal SMN protein accumulates at discrete nucleocytoplasmic dot-like structures previously named gems/Cajal bodies. The cell population with the nucleolar distribution is enriched upon treatment with mimosine, a synchronizing drug in late G(1) phase. Co-immunoprecipitation studies carried out on nuclear extracts reveal that both the endogenous SMN and mutant proteins are associated with complexes containing two major non-ribosomal nucleolar proteins, namely nucleolin and protein B23, and that the association is mediated, by among other things, RNA moieties. Both the association of the SMN protein with nucleolin-containing complexes and the nucleolin/B23 complex are disrupted in fibroblasts derived from a type I SMA patient harboring a homozygous SMN1 gene deletion. These findings suggest that altered assembly and/or stability of ribonucleoprotein complexes may contribute to the pathophysiological processes in SMA.