Germ line mutations in the breast cancer susceptibility gene BRCA2 predispose to early-onset breast cancer, but the function of the nuclear protein encoded by the gene is ill defined. Using the yeast two-hybrid system with fragments of human BRCA2, we identified an interaction with the human DSS1 (deleted in split hand/split foot) gene. Yeast and mammalian two-hybrid assays showed that DSS1 can associate with BRCA2 in the region of amino acids 2472 to 2957 in the C terminus of the protein. Using coimmunoprecipitation of epitope-tagged BRCA2 and DSS1 cDNA constructs transiently expressed in COS cells, we were able to demonstrate an association. Furthermore, endogenous BRCA2 could be coimmunoprecipitated with endogenous DSS1 in MCF7 cells, demonstrating an in vivo association. Apparent orthologues of the mammalian DSS1 gene were identified in the genome of the yeasts Schizosaccharomyces pombe and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Yeast strains in which these DSS1-like genes were deleted showed a temperature-sensitive growth phenotype, which was analyzed by flow cytometry. This provides evidence for a link between the BRCA2 tumor suppressor gene and a gene required for completion of the cell cycle.
The p53 tumor suppressor protein can adopt both latent, non-DNA binding and active, DNA binding forms, and p53 activity is thought to be regulated in cells, at least in part, through a conformational shift which leads to sequence speci®c DNA binding. In vitro, this allosteric regulation of DNA binding by p53 has been shown to be mediated through the C-terminus of the protein. We show here that although deletion of the C-terminal 16 amino acids of p53 did not activate DNA binding, deletion of a further eight amino acids resulted in constitutive activation of DNA binding activity. Simultaneous mutation of the three lysine residues within these eight amino acids also resulted in constitutive DNA binding activity, although this was reduced when only two of these lysines were altered. The deletion or point mutants of p53 showing constitutive DNA binding activity did not display clear evidence of DNA binding site speci®city, although some binding site preference was seen with the point mutants. Each of the constitutively active p53 mutants retained transcriptional activity and induced both cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in transiently transfected cells at rates comparable with the wild type protein.
The activity of the p53 tumor suppressor protein is regulated, at least in part, through the stability of the protein. p53 degradation in normal cells is controlled by ubiquitin-dependent proteolysis, and activation of p53 following DNA damage is associated with an increase in the stability of the protein. The human papillomavirus-encoded E6 protein abrogates p53 function by targeting it for rapid degradation, also through the ubiquitin pathway. Although the p53 protein is ubiquitinated following interaction with E6, we show here that none of the lysine residues within p53 are specifically required for E6-targeted degradation. Mutation of lysine residues within the C-terminus of p53 resulted in resistance to E6-mediated degradation in vitro, although the ability of the two proteins to form a complex was not affected. The same mutant was efficiently targeted for degradation in cells, however, illustrating a lack of correlation between the in vitro and the in vivo assays.
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