[SAGA complex subunit Spt20 involves in the calcineurin-mediated Cl- homeostasis in Schizosaccharomyces pombe].

SAGA (Spt-Ada-Gcn5 acetyltransferase) is a highly conserved protein complex in eukaryotes, which plays a role in many important cellular processes, including transcriptional activation and mRNA exportation. In order to investigate the potential biological function of SAGA subunit, we performed a yeast two-hybrid screen using a core structural subunit of SAGA in fission yeast, Spt20, as the bait. Ppbl, catalytic subunit of calcineruin was identified in the test. Calcineurin is a key regulator of signal transduction. The interaction between Spt20 and Ppb1 was confirmed by yeast two-hybrid assay and co-immunoprecipitation. In S. pombe, ppb1delta was hypersensitive to high concentration of Cl-. In contrast, spt20delta could resist high concentration of Cl-, which maintained normal growth of cells. Fluorescent colocalization analysis showed that Ppb1 was translocated from cytoplasm to nucleus and colocalized with Spt20 upon the increase of extracellular Cl-. Further genetic analysis revealed that loss of spt20+ suppressed the hypersensitive phenotype to Cl- of ppbldelta. Thus, spt20+ and ppb1+ stayed in the same pathway of regulating Cl- homeostasis and spt20+ functioned downstream of ppb1+. Our data suggest that spt20delta is able to resist high concentration of extracellular Cl- and Spt20 involves in the calcineurin-mediated Cl- homeostasis. The aberrant up-regulation of intracellular Cl- is correlated with the diseases like myocardial ischemia reperfusion injury in higher organism. As Spt20 is highly conserved in eukaryotes, it might serve as a potential drug target in Cl- imbalance related diseases.

[Research progress on genomic integrity regulated by epigenetics using yeast as a model.].

Genomic integrity is crucial for normal cell replication, proliferation and differentiation. DNA lesions resulted from exogenous and endogenous factors will lead to genomic instability, and consequently the cause for various diseases. Epigenetic regulation (including DNA methylation, histone modifications and non-coding RNA) plays important roles in DNA lesion repair and cell cycle regulation as well as maintaining the genetic integrity. The yeast, a type of single cell eukaryotic organism, is an ideal model for the researches of epigenetics, especially in the area of DNA lesion repair and the formation of heterochromatin. Previous researches on epigenetics were mainly focus on histone modifications. Recent re-searches have observed that non-coding RNAs are able to direct the cytosine methylation and histone modifications that are related to gene expression regulation. This paper discuss the mechanism, research progress and future development of epi-genetics in maintaining the genomic integrity, using the yeast as a model.

The fission yeast inhibitor of growth (ING) protein Png1p functions in response to DNA damage.

In budding yeast and human cells, ING (inhibitor of growth) tumor suppressor proteins play important roles in response to DNA damage by modulating chromatin structure through collaborating with histone acetyltransferase or histone deacetylase complexes. However, the biological functions of ING family proteins in fission yeast are poorly defined. Here, we report that Png1p, a fission yeast ING homolog protein, is required for cell growth under normal and DNA-damaged conditions. Png1p was further confirmed to regulate histone H4 acetylation through collaboration with the MYST family histone acetyltransferase 1 (Mst1). Additionally, both fission yeast PNG1 and MST1 can functionally complement their budding yeast correspondence homologs YNG2 and ESA1, respectively. These results suggest that ING proteins in fission yeast might also conserve function, similar to ING proteins in budding yeast and human cells. We also showed that decreased acetylation in Deltapng1 cells resulted in genome-wide down-regulation of 756 open reading frames, including the central DNA repair gene RAD22. Overexpression of RAD22 partially rescued the png1 mutant phenotype under both normal and DNA-damaged conditions. Furthermore, decreased expression of RAD22 in Deltapng1 cells was confirmed to be caused by decreased H4 acetylation at its promoter. Altogether, these results indicate that Png1p is required for histone H4 acetylation and functions upstream of RAD22 in the DNA damage response pathway.