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Anti-cancer immunotherapies commonly rely on the use of interleukin-2 (IL-2) to promote the expansion of T lymphocytes. IL-2- dependent proliferation is the culmination of a complex network of phosphorylation-driven signaling events that impact on gene transcription through mechanisms that are not clearly understood. To study the role of IL-2 in the regulation of nuclear protein function we have performed an unbiased mass spectrometry-based study of the nuclear phosphoproteome of resting and IL-2-treated CD4(+) T lymphocytes. We detected 8521distinct phosphosites including many that are not yet reported in curated phosphorylation databases. Although most phosphorylation sites remained unaffected upon IL-2 treatment, 391 sites corresponding to 288 gene products showed robust IL-2-dependent regulation. Importantly, we show that ATP-citrate lyase (ACLY) is a key phosphoprotein effector of IL-2-mediated T-cell responses. ACLY becomes phosphorylated on serine 455 in T lymphocytes upon IL-2-driven activation of AKT, and depletion or inactivation of ACLY compromises IL-2-promoted T-cell growth. Mechanistically, we demonstrate that ACLY is required for enhancing histone acetylation levels and inducing the expression of cell cycle regulating genes in response to IL-2. Thus, the metabolic enzyme ACLY emerges as a bridge between cytokine signaling and proliferation of T lymphocytes, and may be an attractive candidate target for the development of more efficient anti-cancer immunotherapies., (© 2016 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.)

E2F transcription factors control the expression of genes involved in a variety of essential cellular processes and consequently their activity needs to be tightly regulated. Protein-protein interactions are thought to be key modulators of E2F activity. To gain insight into the mechanisms that regulate the activity of E2F2, we searched for novel proteins that associate with this transcription factor. We show that the nuclear protein ALY (THO complex 4), originally described as a transcriptional co-activator, associates with DNA-bound E2F2 and represses its transcriptional activity. The capacity of ALY to modulate gene expression was analyzed with expression microarrays by characterizing the transcriptome of E2F2 expressing HEK293T cells in which ALY was either overexpressed or silenced. We show that ALY influences the expression of more than 400 genes, including 98 genes bearing consensus E2F motifs. Thus, ALY emerges as a novel E2F2-interacting protein and a relevant modulator of E2F-responsive gene expression.

E2F transcription factors (E2F1-8) are best known for their role in cell proliferation, although it is clear that they regulate many other biological processes through the transcriptional modulation of distinct target genes. However, the specific set of genes regulated by each E2F remains to be characterized. To gain insight into the molecular pathways regulated by E2F2, we have analyzed the proteome of antigen receptor-activated T cells lacking E2F2. We report that loss of E2F2 results in a deregulated Aryl-hydrocarbon-receptor pathway. Proliferating E2F2(-/-) T lymphocytes expressed significantly higher levels of Aip, Ahr, and Arnt relative to wild-type (WT)(1) controls. The mechanism for increased levels of Aip appears straightforward, involving direct regulation of the Aip gene promoter by E2F2. Although the Ahr and Arnt promoters also bind E2F2, their regulation appears to be more complex. Nevertheless, exposure to the environmental xenobiotic 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), a well-known exogenous ligand of the Ahr pathway, led to overexpression of the Ahr target gene Cyp1a1, and to increased sensitivity to TCDD-triggered apoptosis in E2F2(-/-) T cells compared with WT controls. These results suggest that E2F2 modulates cellular sensitivity to xenobiotic signals through the negative regulation of the Ahr pathway.