Search

Background: Heat shock factor (HSF/HSF1) not only is the transcription factor primarily responsible for the transcriptional response of cells to physical and chemical stress but also coregulates other important signaling pathways. The factor mediates the stress-induced expression of heat shock or stress proteins (HSPs). HSF/HSF1 is inactive in unstressed cells and is activated during stress. Activation is accompanied by hyperphosphorylation of the factor. The regulatory importance of this phosphorylation has remained incompletely understood. Several previous studies on human HSF1 were concerned with phosphorylation on Ser303, Ser307 and Ser363, which phosphorylation appears to be related to factor deactivation subsequent to stress, and one study reported stress-induced phosphorylation of Ser230 contributing to factor activation. However, no previous study attempted to fully describe the phosphorylation status of an HSF/HSF1 in stressed cells and to systematically identify phosphoresidues involved in factor activation. The present study reports such an analysis for human HSF1 in heat-stressed cells. Results: An alanine scan of all Ser, Thr and Tyr residues of human HSF1 was carried out using a validated transactivation assay, and residues phosphorylated in HSF1 were identified by mass spectrometry and sequencing. HSF1 activated by heat treatment was phosphorylated on Ser121, Ser230, Ser292, Ser303, Ser307, Ser314, Ser319, Ser326, Ser344, Ser363, Ser419, and Ser444. Phosphorylation of Ser326 but none of the other Ser residues was found to contribute significantly to activation of the factor by heat stress. Phosphorylation on Ser326 increased rapidly during heat stress as shown by experiments using a pSer326 phosphopeptide antibody. Heat stress-induced DNA binding and nuclear translocation of a S326A substitution mutant was not impaired in HSF1-negative cells, but the mutant stimulated HSP70 expression several times less well than wild type factor. Conclusion: Twelve Ser residues but no Thr or Tyr residues were identified that were phosphorylated in heat-activated HSF1. Mutagenesis experiments and functional studies suggested that phosphorylation of HSF1 residue Ser326 plays a critical role in the induction of the factor's transcriptional competence by heat stress. PhosphoSer326 also contributes to activation of HSF1 by chemical stress. To date, no functional role could be ascribed to any of the other newly identified phosphoSer residues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DAXX, a modulator of apoptosis and a repressor of basal transcription, was identified in a two-hybrid screen as a protein capable of interacting with a trimeric form of human heat shock factor 1 (HSF1). In human cells, DAXX interacted with HSF1 essentially only during stress, i.e., when factor trimerization occurred. Several lines of experimentation suggested that DAXX is an important mediator of HSF1 activation: (i) overexpression of DAXX enhanced basal transactivation competence of HSF1 in the absence of a stress; (ii) a DAXX fragment exerted dominant-negative effects on HSF1 activation by different types of stress; (ii,) induction of heat shock or stress protein (HSP)70 by heat stress was defective in a cell line lacking functional DAXX; and (iv) RNA interference depletion of DAXX also substantially reduced heat induction of HSF1 activity and HSP70 expression. HSF1 transactivation competence is repressed by an HSP90-containing multichaperone complex that interacts with trimeric factor. Overexpressed HSF1. known to be largely trimeric, only marginally increased HSF1 activity on its own but potentiated the activating effect of DAXX overexpression. Expression of a nonnative protein capable of competing for multichaperone complex also synergistically enhanced activation of HSF1 by DAXX. These observations suggest a model in which DAXX released from its nuclear stores during stress opposes repression of HSF1 transactivation competence by multichaperone complex through its interaction with trimerized HSF1. Our identification of DAXX as a mediator of HSF1 activation raises the question whether DAXX produces some of its pleiotropic effects through modulation of HSP levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here, we describe a new mechanism of host defense that involves the nuclear factors associated with dsRNA (NFAR1 [90 kDa] and NFAR2 [110 kDa]), which constitute part of the shuttling ribonuclear protein (RNP) complex. Activation of the dsRNA-activated protein kinase PKR by viral RNA enabled phosphorylation of NFAR1 and NFAR2 on Thr 188 and Thr 315, an event found to be evolutionarily conserved in Xenopus. Phosphorylated NFAR1 and NFAR2 became dissociated from nuclear factor 45 (NF45), which was requisite for NFAR reshuttling, causing the NFARs to be retained on ribosomes, associate with viral transcripts, and impede viral replication. Cre-loxP animals with depletion of the NFARs in the thymus were exquisitely sensitive to the cytoplasmic replicating virus VSV (vesicular stomatitis virus). Thus, the NFARs constitute a novel, conserved mechanism of host defense used by the cell to detect and impede aberrant translation events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]