eIF4B mRNA Translation Contributes to Cleavage Dynamics in Early Sea Urchin Embryos.

During the first steps of sea urchin development, fertilization elicits a marked increase in protein synthesis essential for subsequent cell divisions. While the translation of mitotic cyclin mRNAs is crucial, we hypothesized that additional mRNAs must be translated to finely regulate the onset into mitosis. One of the maternal mRNAs recruited onto active polysomes at this stage codes for the initiation factor eIF4B. Here, we show that the sea urchin eIF4B orthologs present the four specific domains essential for eIF4B function and that Paracentrotus lividus eIF4B copurifies with eIF4E in a heterologous system. In addition, we investigated the role of eIF4B mRNA de novo translation during the two first embryonic divisions of two species, P. lividus and Sphaerechinus granularis. Our results show that injection of a morpholino directed against eIF4B mRNA results in a downregulation of translational activity and delays cell division in these two echinoids. Conversely, injection of an mRNA encoding for P. lividus eIF4B stimulates translation and significantly accelerates cleavage rates. Taken together, our findings suggest that eIF4B mRNA de novo translation participates in a conserved regulatory loop that contributes to orchestrating protein synthesis and modulates cell division rhythm during early sea urchin development.

In vivo analysis of protein translation activity in sea urchin eggs and embryos.

Protein synthesis is a major regulatory step of gene expression in different physiological processes including development. Translation of proteins in sea urchin is stimulated upon fertilization and is necessary for cell cycle progression and development. Translational control is exerted through multifactorial mechanisms, including mRNA recruitment into polysomes and increased rates of translational activity. In this chapter, we review the methods used in sea urchin eggs and embryos to analyze translation activity in vivo both from perspectives of the proteins and of the mRNAs. First, we describe methods to quantify or visualize newly synthesized proteins with radioactive and non-radioactive labeling techniques. Next we present the polysome isolation and profiling on sucrose gradients, allowing the identification of translated mRNAs. Finally, we outline a procedure to follow the translation of a reporter luciferase protein from an mRNA microinjected into the egg.

Translational Control of Canonical and Non-Canonical Translation Initiation Factors at the Sea Urchin Egg to Embryo Transition.

Sea urchin early development is a powerful model to study translational regulation under physiological conditions. Fertilization triggers an activation of the translation machinery responsible for the increase of protein synthesis necessary for the completion of the first embryonic cell cycles. The cap-binding protein eIF4E, the helicase eIF4A and the large scaffolding protein eIF4G are assembled upon fertilization to form an initiation complex on mRNAs involved in cap-dependent translation initiation. The presence of these proteins in unfertilized and fertilized eggs has already been demonstrated, however data concerning the translational status of translation factors are still scarce. Using polysome fractionation, we analyzed the impact of fertilization on the recruitment of mRNAs encoding initiation factors. Strikingly, whereas the mRNAs coding eIF4E, eIF4A, and eIF4G were not recruited into polysomes at 1 h post-fertilization, mRNAs for eIF4B and for non-canonical initiation factors such as DAP5, eIF4E2, eIF4E3, or hnRNP Q, are recruited and are differentially sensitive to the activation state of the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway. We discuss our results suggesting alternative translation initiation in the context of the early development of sea urchins.

Translatome analysis at the egg-to-embryo transition in sea urchin.

Early embryogenesis relies on the translational regulation of maternally stored mRNAs. In sea urchin, fertilization triggers a dramatic rise in translation activity, necessary for the onset of cell division. Here, the full spectrum of the mRNAs translated upon fertilization was investigated by polysome profiling and sequencing. The translatome of the early sea urchin embryo gave a complete picture of the polysomal recruitment dynamics following fertilization. Our results indicate that only a subset of maternal mRNAs were selectively recruited onto polysomes, with over-represented functional categories in the translated set. The increase in translation upon fertilization depends on the formation of translation initiation complexes following mTOR pathway activation. Surprisingly, mTOR pathway inhibition differentially affected polysomal recruitment of the newly translated mRNAs, which thus appeared either mTOR-dependent or mTOR-independent. Therefore, our data argue for an alternative to the classical cap-dependent model of translation in early development. The identification of the mRNAs translated following fertilization helped assign translational activation events to specific mRNAs. This translatome is the first step to a comprehensive analysis of the molecular mechanisms governing translation upon fertilization and the translational regulatory networks that control the egg-to-embryo transition as well as the early steps of embryogenesis.

Analysis of translation using polysome profiling.

During the past decade, there has been growing interest in the role of translational regulation of gene expression in many organisms. Polysome profiling has been developed to infer the translational status of a specific mRNA species or to analyze the translatome, i.e. the subset of mRNAs actively translated in a cell. Polysome profiling is especially suitable for emergent model organisms for which genomic data are limited. In this paper, we describe an optimized protocol for the purification of sea urchin polysomes and highlight the critical steps involved in polysome purification. We applied this protocol to obtain experimental results on translational regulation of mRNAs following fertilization. Our protocol should prove useful for integrating the study of the role of translational regulation in gene regulatory networks in any biological model. In addition, we demonstrate how to carry out high-throughput processing of polysome gradient fractions, for the simultaneous screening of multiple biological conditions and large-scale preparation of samples for next-generation sequencing.

MAPK/ERK activity is required for the successful progression of mitosis in sea urchin embryos.

Using sea urchin embryos, we demonstrate that the MEK/MAPK/ERK cascade is essential for the proper progression of the cell cycle. Activation of a limited fraction of MAPK/ERK is required between S-phase and M-phase. Neither DNA replication nor CDK1 activation are impacted by the inhibition of this small active MAPK/ERK fraction. Nonetheless, the chromatin and spindle organisations are profoundly altered. Early morphological disorders induced by the absence of MAPK/ERK activation are correlated with an important inhibition of global protein synthesis and modification in the cyclin B accumulation profile. After appearance of morphological disorders, there is an increase in the level of the inhibitor of protein synthesis, 4E-BP, and, ultimately, an activation of the spindle checkpoint. Altogether, our results suggest that MAPK/ERK activity is required for the synthesis of (a) protein(s) implicated in an early step of chromatin /microtubule attachment. If this MAPK/ERK-dependent step is not achieved, the cell activates a new checkpoint mechanism, involving the reappearance of 4E-BP that maintains a low level of protein translation, thus saving cellular energy.

Cyclin B Translation Depends on mTOR Activity after Fertilization in Sea Urchin Embryos.

The cyclin B/CDK1 complex is a key regulator of mitotic entry. Using PP242, a specific ATP-competitive inhibitor of mTOR kinase, we provide evidence that the mTOR signalling pathway controls cyclin B mRNA translation following fertilization in Sphaerechinus granularis and Paracentrotus lividus. We show that PP242 inhibits the degradation of the cap-dependent translation repressor 4E-BP (eukaryotic initiation factor 4E-Binding Protein). PP242 inhibits global protein synthesis, delays cyclin B accumulation, cyclin B/CDK1 complex activation and consequently entry into the mitotic phase of the cell cycle triggered by fertilization. PP242 inhibits cyclin B mRNA recruitment into active polysomes triggered by fertilization. An amount of cyclin B mRNA present in active polysomes appears to be insensitive to PP242 treatment. Taken together, our results suggest that, following sea urchin egg fertilization, cyclin B mRNA translation is controlled by two independent mechanisms: a PP242-sensitive and an additional PP242-insentitive mechanism.