An inhibitor of nuclear scaffold protease blocks chemical transformation of fibroblasts.

A nuclear scaffold (NS) protease has previously been implicated in production of the M(r) 46,000 ATP-binding protein in NS (which may acquire nucleoside triphosphatase activity and participate in nucleocytoplasmic transport) by cleavage of a subset of lamins A/C. In a preceding paper (G. Clawson, L. Norbeck, C. Hatem, C. Rhodes, P. Amiri, J. McKerrow, S. Patierno, and G. Fiskum, Cell Growth & Differ., 3: 827-838), this NS protease was identified as a novel, Ca(2+)-regulated serine protease, which was found only in the NS and which appears to represent a unique multicatalytic protease complex. Based upon its predominantly chymotrypsin-like substrate preference, a peptide-chloromethylketone inhibitor (succinyl-AAPF-chloromethylketone, AAPFcmk) was identified. AAPFcmk showed a KI = 56 nM for the NS protease versus 1.4 microM for the endoplasmic reticulum activity. Treatment of C3H/10T1/2 mouse embryo fibroblast cells with 1 microM AAPFcmk produced effects which were confined to the nuclear (and to a lesser extent the endoplasmic reticulum) compartment. In this report, we examine the effects of the AAPFcmk inhibitor on cellular transformation and growth. Growth of C3H/10T1/2 cells was decreased by 34% and 56% at 25 microM and 50 microM AAPFcmk, respectively. Growth inhibition occurred without any major change in DNA content distribution, suggesting effects throughout the cell cycle. Growth inhibition was not observed at lower (< or = 10 microM) concentrations, which decreased transformation of C3H/10T1/2 fibroblasts in a dose-dependent manner by up to 90%, even at femtomolar concentrations of AAPFcmk (in the absence of growth inhibition). Inclusion of irrelevant inhibitors was without affect.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Ca(2+)-regulated serine protease associated with the nuclear scaffold.

The nuclear scaffold (NS) is a proteinaceous network of orthogonally arrayed intermediate filament proteins, termed lamins, which is responsible for nuclear structure. Recent work has demonstrated that a subset of lamins A/C is proteolytically cleaved to produce an ATP-binding protein. This proteolytic cleavage is accomplished by a NS protease activity, which shows a considerable selectivity for lamins A/C and is stringently regulated by Ca2+ in vitro, suggesting that it might also participate in control of NS breakdown in various scenarios. Here, we identify the major NS protease as a novel serine protease with a predominantly chymotryptic-like substrate preference, and we show that even transient perturbations in cytosolic Ca2+ have significant effects on the NS protease activity. This NS protease activity shows extensive similarities to the multicatalytic proteinase complex. In addition to a potential role in control of NS breakdown at mitosis and/or under pathological conditions, this NS protease is also strategically located for other functions, such as inactivation of various oncogenic proteins or maturation-promoting factor.

SRN1, a yeast gene involved in RNA processing, is identical to HEX2/REG1, a negative regulator in glucose repression.

The yeast RNA1 gene encodes a cytosolic protein that affects pre-tRNA splicing, pre-rRNA processing, the production of mRNA, and the export of RNA from the nucleus to the cytosol. In an attempt to understand how the RNA1 protein affects such a diverse set of processes, we sought second-site suppressors of a mutation, rna1-1, of the RNA1 locus. Mutations in a single complementation group were obtained. These lesions proved to be in the same gene, SRN1, identified previously in a search for second-site suppressors of mutations that affect the removal of intervening sequences from pre-mRNAs. The SRN1 gene was mapped, cloned, and sequenced. DNA sequence analysis and the phenotype of disruption mutations showed that, surprisingly, SRN1 is identical to HEX2/REG1, a gene that negatively regulates glucose-repressible genes. Interestingly, SRN1 is not a negative regulator of RNA1 at the transcriptional, translational, or protein stability level. However, SRN1 does regulate the level of two newly discovered antigens, p43 and p70, one of which is not glucose repressible. These studies for the first time link RNA processing and carbon catabolite repression.