Laurence Vandel

Control of CBP co‐activating activity by arginine methylation

The histone acetyltransferases CREB binding protein (CBP) and the related p300 protein function as key transcriptional co‐activators in multiple pathways. In the case of transcriptional activation by nuclear receptors, ligand promotes the recruitment of co‐activators of the p160 family, such as GRIP‐1. Subsequently, the p160 co‐activators recruit other co‐activators via two activation domains, AD1 and AD2. AD1 binds CBP or p300, whereas AD2 has been shown to activate transcription through the recruitment of the arginine methyltransferase CARM1. Recently, the KIX domain of CBP has been shown to be methylated by CARM1 in vitro. Here, we report that another domain of CBP is specifically methylated by CARM1 on conserved arginine residues in vitro and in vivo. We also provide functional evidence that arginine residues methylated by CARM1 play a critical role in GRIP‐1‐dependent transcriptional activation and in hormone‐induced gene activation. Altogether, our data provide strong evidence that arginine methylation represents an important mechanism for modulating co‐activator transcriptional activity.

Transcriptional Repression by the Retinoblastoma Protein through the Recruitment of a Histone Methyltransferase

ABSTRACT The E2F transcription factor controls the cell cycle-dependent expression of many S-phase-specific genes. Transcriptional repression of these genes in G0 and at the beginning of G1by the retinoblasma protein Rb is crucial for the proper control of cell proliferation. Rb has been proposed to function, at least in part, through the recruitment of histone deacetylases. However, recent results indicate that other chromatin-modifying enzymes are likely to be involved. Here, we show that Rb also interacts with a histone methyltransferase, which specifically methylates K9 of histone H3. The results of coimmunoprecipitation experiments of endogenous or transfected proteins indicate that this histone methyltransferase is the recently described heterochromatin-associated protein Suv39H1. Interestingly, phosphorylation of Rb in vitro as well as in vivo abolished the Rb-Suv39H1 interaction. We also found that Suv39H1 and Rb cooperate to repress E2F activity and that Suv39H1 could be recruited to E2F1 through its interaction with Rb. Taken together, these data indicate that Suv39H1 is involved in transcriptional repression by Rb and suggest an unexpected link between E2F regulation and heterochromatin.

Coactivator-associated arginine methyltransferase 1 (CARM1) is a positive regulator of the Cyclin E1 gene.

The Cyclin E1 gene (CCNE1) is an ideal model to explore the mechanisms that control the transcription of cell cycle-regulated genes whose expression rises transiently before entry into S phase. E2F-dependent regulation of the CCNE1 promoter was shown to correlate with changes in the level of H3-K9 acetylation/methylation of nucleosomal histones positioned at the transcriptional start site region. Here we show that, upon growth stimulation, the same region is subject to variations of H3-R17 and H3-R26 methylation that correlate with the recruitment of coactivator-associated arginine methyltransferase 1 (CARM1) onto the CCNE1 and DHFR promoters. Accordingly, CARM1-deficient cells lack these modifications and present lowered levels and altered kinetics of CCNE1 and DHFR mRNA expression. Consistently, reporter gene assays demonstrate that CARM1 functions as a transcriptional coactivator for their E2F1/DP1-stimulated expression. CARM1 recruitment at the CCNE1 gene requires activator E2Fs and ACTR, a member of the p160 coactivator family that is frequently overexpressed in human breast cancer. Finally, we show that grade-3 breast tumors present coelevated mRNA levels of ACTR and CARM1, along with their transcriptional target CCNE1. All together, our results indicate that CARM1 is an important regulator of the CCNE1 gene.

Physical association between the histone acetyl transferase CBP and a histone methyl transferase

CBP (CREB‐binding protein) is involved in transcriptional activation by a great variety of sequence‐specific transcription factors. CBP has been shown to activate transcription through its histone acetyl transferase activity. Acetylation is a common post‐translational modification of nucleosomal histone N‐terminal tails, which generally correlates with transcriptional activation. Histone N‐terminal tails are also modified by methylation but its functional consequences are largely unknown. Here we found that immunoprecipitation of CBP, or of the highly related p300, led to the co‐immunoprecipitation of a robust histone methyl transferase (HMT) activity, indicating that CBP physically interacts with an HMT in living cells. The CBP‐associated HMT is specific for lysines 4 and 9 of histone H3, which are known to be methylated in living cells. These results suggest that histone methylation could be involved in transcriptional activation. Furthermore, they raise the question of the link between histone methylation and acetylation.

Expression patterns of CREB binding protein (CREBBP) and its methylated species during zebrafish development

Proper embryonic development requires a fine-tuned control of gene expression, which is achieved in part through the activity of transcription coactivators or corepressors. The nuclear coactivator cAMP-response element-binding protein (CREB) binding protein (CREBBP or CBP) interacts with numerous transcription factors and thereby plays a key role in various signaling pathways. Interestingly, in cell-based studies CREBBP activity is modulated by post-translational modifications such as methylation on arginine residues which is catalyzed by coactivator-associated arginine methyltransferase 1 (CARM1). However, whether and where CREBBP, and in particular its methylated forms, are expressed during development in vertebrates has not been addressed so far. Here, we analyzed the expression of the two crebbp genes (crebbpa & crebbpb) during zebrafish development using both RT-qPCR and in situ hybridization. We found that while crebbpa expression is higher in posterior, caudal nascent somites during somitogenesis, crebbpb accumulates in anterior, rostral, and more mature somites. In addition, crebbpa mRNA is enriched in the central myotome at 24 hpf indicating that its expression is spatially and temporally controlled. We next characterized the expression of CREBBP protein from blastula to gastrula stages by immunohistochemistry. We found that while CREBBP is clearly cytoplasmic in the early blastula, it becomes both cytoplasmic and nuclear at 30% epiboly before turning mainly nuclear during gastrulation. Of interest, CREBBP methylated species appear to be mainly nuclear from 30% epiboly to 6-somite stage. This suggests that methylation may regulate CREBBP import to the nucleus during zebrafish development and could therefore participate in the control of early developmental processes.