A novel microtubule inhibitor 4SC-207 with anti-proliferative activity in taxane-resistant cells.

Microtubule inhibitors are invaluable tools in cancer chemotherapy: taxanes and vinca alkaloids have been successfully used in the clinic over the past thirty years against a broad range of tumors. However, two factors have limited the effectiveness of microtubule inhibitors: toxicity and resistance. In particular, the latter is highly unpredictable, variable from patient to patient and is believed to be the cause of treatment failure in most cases of metastatic cancers. For these reasons, there is an increasing demand for new microtubule inhibitors that can overcome resistance mechanisms and that, at the same time, have reduced side effects. Here we present a novel microtubule inhibitor, 4SC-207, which shows strong anti-proliferative activity in a large panel of tumor cell lines with an average GI50 of 11 nM. In particular, 4SC-207 is active in multi-drug resistant cell lines, such as HCT-15 and ACHN, suggesting that it is a poor substrate for drug efflux pumps. 4SC-207 inhibits microtubule growth in vitro and in vivo and promotes, in a dose dependent manner, a mitotic delay/arrest, followed by apoptosis or aberrant divisions due to chromosome alignment defects and formation of multi-polar spindles. Furthermore, preliminary data from preclinical studies suggest low propensity towards bone marrow toxicities at concentrations that inhibit tumor growth in paclitaxel-resistant xenograft models. In summary, our results suggest that 4SC-207 may be a potential anti-cancer agent.

Automatic quantification of microtubule dynamics enables RNAi-screening of new mitotic spindle regulators.

The genetic integrity of every organism depends on the faithful partitioning of its genome between two daughter cells in mitosis. In all eukaryotes, chromosome segregation requires the assembly of the mitotic spindle, a bipolar array of dynamic microtubules. Perturbations in microtubule dynamics affect spindle assembly and maintenance and ultimately result in aberrant cell divisions. To identify new regulators of microtubule dynamics within the hundreds of mitotic hits, reported in RNAi screens performed in C. elegans, Drosophila and mammalian tissue culture cells [Sonnichsen et al., 2005; Goshima et al., 2007; Neumann et al., 2010], we established a fast and quantitative assay to measure microtubule dynamics in living cells. Here we present a fully automated workflow from RNAi transfection, via image acquisition and data processing, to the quantitative characterization of microtubule behaviour. Candidate genes are knocked down by solid-phase reverse transfection with siRNA oligos in HeLa cells stably expressing EB3-EGFP, a microtubule plus end marker. Mitotic cells are selected using an automatic classifier [Conrad et al., 2011] and imaged on a spinning disk confocal microscope at high temporal and spatial resolution. The time-lapse movies are analysed using a multiple particle tracking software, developed in-house, that automatically detects microtubule plus ends, tracks microtubule growth events over consecutive frames and calculates growth speeds, lengths and lifetimes of the tracked microtubules. The entire assay provides a powerful tool to analyse the effect of essential mitotic genes on microtubule dynamics in living cells and to dissect their contribution in spindle assembly and maintenance.

Sun1 forms immobile macromolecular assemblies at the nuclear envelope.

SUN-domain proteins form a novel and conserved family of inner nuclear membrane (INM) proteins, which establish physical connections between the nucleoplasm and the cytoskeleton. In the current study, we provide evidence that within the nuclear envelope (NE) Sun1 proteins form highly immobile oligomeric complexes in interphase cells. By performing inverse fluorescence recovery after photobleaching analysis, we demonstrate in vivo that both perinuclear and nucleoplasmic Sun1 segments are essential for maintenance of Sun1 immobility at the NE. Our data in particular underline the self-association properties of the C-terminal coiled-coil Sun1 segment, the ability of which to form dimers and tetramers is demonstrated. Furthermore, the Sun1 tertiary structure involves interchain disulfide bonds that might contribute to higher homo-oligomer formation, although the overall dynamics of the Sun1 C-terminus remains unaffected when the cysteins involved are mutated. While a major Sun1 pool colocalizes with nuclear pore complex proteins, a large fraction of the Sun1 protein assemblies colocalize with immunoreactive foci of Sun2, another SUN-domain paralogue at the NE. We demonstrate that the Sun1 coiled-coil domain permits these heterophilic associations with Sun2. Sun1 therefore provides a non-dynamic platform for the formation of different macromolecular assemblies at the INM. Our data support a model in which SUN-protein-containing multi-variate complexes may provide versatile outer nuclear membrane attachment sites for cytoskeletal filaments.

Systematic kinetic analysis of mitotic dis- and reassembly of the nuclear pore in living cells.

During mitosis in higher eukaryotes, nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) disassemble in prophase and are rebuilt in anaphase and telophase. NPC formation is hypothesized to occur by the interaction of mitotically stable subcomplexes that form defined structural intermediates. To determine the sequence of events that lead to breakdown and reformation of functional NPCs during mitosis, we present here our quantitative assay based on confocal time-lapse microscopy of single dividing cells. We use this assay to systematically investigate the kinetics of dis- and reassembly for eight nucleoporin subcomplexes relative to nuclear transport in NRK cells, linking the assembly state of the NPC with its function. Our data establish that NPC assembly is an ordered stepwise process that leads to import function already in a partially assembled state. We furthermore find that nucleoporin dissociation does not occur in the reverse order from binding during assembly, which may indicate a distinct mechanism.

Fluorophores for live cell imaging of AGT fusion proteins across the visible spectrum.

O6-alkylguanine-DNA alkyltransferase (AGT) fusion proteins can be specifically and covalently labeled with fluorescent O6-benzylguanine (O6-BG) derivatives for multicolor live cell imaging approaches. Here, we characterize several new BG fluorophores suitable for in vivo AGT labeling that display fluorescence emission maxima covering the visible spectrum from 472 to 673 nm, thereby extending the spectral limits set by fluorescent proteins. We show that the photostability of the cell-permeable dyes BG Rhodamine Green (BG505) and CP tetramethylrhodamine (CP-TMR) is in the range of enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) and monomeric red fluorescent protein (mRFP), and that BG diethylaminomethyl coumarin (BGDEAC), a derivative of coumarin, is even more stable than enhanced cyan fluorescent protein (ECFP). Due to the increasing number of new BG derivatives with interesting fluorescence properties, such as far-red emission, fluorescence labeling of AGT fusion proteins is becoming a versatile alternative to existing live cell imaging approaches.

The Mad1/Mad2 complex as a template for Mad2 activation in the spindle assembly checkpoint.

BACKGROUND: The spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC) imparts fidelity to chromosome segregation by delaying anaphase until all sister chromatid pairs have become bipolarly attached. Mad2 is a component of the SAC effector complex that sequesters Cdc20 to halt anaphase. In prometaphase, Mad2 is recruited to kinetochores with the help of Mad1, and it is activated to bind Cdc20. These events are linked to the existence of two distinct conformers of Mad2: a closed conformer bound to its kinetochore receptor Mad1 or its target in the checkpoint Cdc20 and an open conformer unbound to these ligands. RESULTS: We investigated the mechanism of Mad2 recruitment to the kinetochore during checkpoint activation and subsequent transfer to Cdc20. We report that a closed conformer of Mad2 constitutively bound to Mad1, rather than Mad1 itself, is the kinetochore receptor for cytosolic open Mad2 and show that the interaction of open and closed Mad2 conformers is essential to sustain the SAC. CONCLUSIONS: We propose that closed Mad2 bound to Mad1 represents a template for the conversion of open Mad2 into closed Mad2 bound to Cdc20. This simple model, which we have named the "Mad2 template" model, predicts a mechanism for cytosolic propagation of the spindle checkpoint signal away from kinetochores.

Crystal structure of the tetrameric Mad1-Mad2 core complex: implications of a 'safety belt' binding mechanism for the spindle checkpoint.

The spindle checkpoint protein Mad1 recruits Mad2 to unattached kinetochores and is essential for Mad2-Cdc20 complex formation in vivo but not in vitro. The crystal structure of the Mad1-Mad2 complex reveals an asymmetric tetramer, with elongated Mad1 monomers parting from a coiled-coil to form two connected sub-complexes with Mad2. The Mad2 C-terminal tails are hinged mobile elements wrapping around the elongated ligands like molecular 'safety belts'. We show that Mad1 is a competitive inhibitor of the Mad2-Cdc20 complex, and propose that the Mad1-Mad2 complex acts as a regulated gate to control Mad2 release for Cdc20 binding. Mad1-Mad2 is strongly stabilized in the tetramer, but a 1:1 Mad1-Mad2 complex slowly releases Mad2 for Cdc20 binding, driven by favourable binding energies. Thus, the rate of Mad2 binding to Cdc20 during checkpoint activation may be regulated by conformational changes that destabilize the tetrameric Mad1-Mad2 assembly to promote Mad2 release. We also show that unlocking the Mad2 C-terminal tail is required for ligand release from Mad2, and that the 'safety belt' mechanism may prolong the lifetime of Mad2-ligand complexes.