No abstract

The 70 kDa heat shock protein (HSP70) family of chaperones are the front line of protection from stress-induced misfolding and aggregation of polypeptides in most organisms and are responsible for promoting the stability, folding, and degradation of clients to maintain cellular protein homeostasis. Here, we demonstrate quantitative identification of HSP70 and 71 kDa heat shock cognate (HSC70) clients using a ubiquitin-mediated proximity tagging strategy and show that, despite their high degree of similarity, these enzymes have largely nonoverlapping specificities. Both proteins show a preference for association with newly synthesized polypeptides, but each responds differently to changes in the stoichiometry of proteins in obligate multi-subunit complexes. In addition, expression of an amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)-associated superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) mutant protein induces changes in HSP70 and HSC70 client association and aggregation toward polypeptides with predicted disorder, indicating that there are global effects from a single misfolded protein that extend to many clients within chaperone networks. Together these findings show that the ubiquitinactivated interaction trap (UBAIT) fusion system can efficiently isolate the complex interactome of HSP chaperone family proteins under normal and stress conditions.

The HSP70 family of chaperones are the front-line of protection from stress-induced misfolding and aggregation of polypeptides in most organisms and are responsible for promoting the stability, folding, and degradation of clients to maintain cellular protein homeostasis. Here we demonstrate quantitative identification of HSP70 and HSC70 clients using an ubiquitin-mediated proximity tagging strategy and show that, despite their high degree of similarity, these enzymes have largely non-overlapping specificities. Both proteins show a preference for association with newly synthesized polypeptides but each responds differently to changes in the stoichiometry of proteins in obligate multi-subunit complexes. In addition, expression of an ALS-associated SOD1 mutant protein induces changes in HSP70 and HSC70 client association and aggregation toward polypeptides with predicted disorder, indicating that there are global effects from a single misfolded protein that extend to many clients within chaperone networks. Together these findings show that the ubiquitin-mediated UBAIT fusion system can efficiently isolate the complex interactome of HSP chaperone family proteins under normal and stress conditions.

Loss of the ataxia-telangiectasia mutated (ATM) kinase causes cerebellum-specific neurodegeneration in humans. We previously demonstrated that deficiency in ATM activation via oxidative stress generates high levels of insoluble protein aggregates in human cells, reminiscent of protein dysfunction in common neurodegenerative disorders. Here we show that this process is driven by poly-ADP-ribose polymerases (PARPs) and that the insoluble protein species arise from intrinsically disordered proteins associating with PAR-associated genomic sites in ATM-deficient cells. The lesions implicated in this process are single-strand DNA breaks dependent on reactive oxygen species, transcription, and R-loops. Human cells expressing Mre11 A-T-like disorder (ATLD) mutants also show PARP-dependent aggregation identical to that of ATM deficiency. Lastly, analysis of A-T patient cerebellum samples shows widespread protein aggregation as well as loss of proteins known to be critical in human spinocerebellar ataxias. These results provide a new hypothesis for loss of protein integrity and cerebellum function in A-T.