Drosophila germ-line stem cells (GSCs) provide an excellent model to study the regulatory mechanisms of stem cells in vivo. Bag of marbles (bam) has been demonstrated to be necessary and sufficient to promote GSC and cystoblast differentiation. Despite extensive investigation of its regulation and genetic functions, the biochemical nature of the Bam protein has been unknown. Here, we report that Bam is an ubiquitin-associated protein and controls the turnover of cyclin A (CycA). Mechanistically, we found that Bam associated with Otu to form a deubiquitinase complex that stabilized CycA by deubiquitination, thus providing a mechanism to explain how ectopic expression of Bam in GSCs promotes differentiation. Collectively, our findings not only identify a biochemical function of Bam, which contributes to GSC fate determination, but also emphasizes the critical role of proper expression of cyclin proteins mediated by both ubiquitination and deubiquitination pathways in balancing stem cell self-renewal and differentiation.
Innate immunity mediated by Toll signalling has been extensively studied, but how Toll signalling is precisely controlled in balancing innate immune responses remains poorly understood. It was reported that the plasma membrane localization of Drosophila MyD88 is necessary for the recruitment of cytosolic adaptor Tube to the cell surface, thus contributing to Toll signalling transduction. Here we demonstrate that Drosophila Pellino functions as a negative regulator in Toll-mediated signalling. We show that Pellino accumulates at the plasma membrane upon the activation of Toll signalling in a MyD88-dependent manner. Moreover, we find that Pellino is associated with MyD88 via its CTE domain, which is necessary and sufficient to promote Pellino accumulation at the plasma membrane where it targets MyD88 for ubiquitination and degradation. Collectively, our study uncovers a mechanism by which a feedback regulatory loop involving MyD88 and Pellino controls Toll-mediated signalling, thereby maintaining homeostasis of host innate immunity.
Highlights d LC domain-mediated coalescence is essential for Otu deubiquitinase activity d RNAs bind LC domain and enhance Otu coalescence and its enzyme activity d Otu/Bam complex targets dTraf6 to maintain gut immune homeostasis d Dynamic regulation of Otu/Bam granules in guts controls fly lifespan
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