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Molecular & Cellular Proteomics 8:1959-1971, 2009.
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| ABSTRACT |
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receptor IIB (CD32B), HLA-DQ, signaling lymphocytic activation molecule (CD150), and polio virus receptor (CD155). The identification of plasma membrane targets by SILAC with confirmation by flow cytometry represents a novel and powerful approach to analyze changes in the plasma membrane proteome.
20% of the genome codes for proteins with at least one hydrophobic
helix (4).
The ability of receptors at the cell surface to respond to ligand stimulation is particularly important when the duration and intensity of signaling must be limited. The expression of cell surface proteins therefore undergoes constant turnover by endocytosis and recycling. For example the constitutively recycling T cell receptor is ubiquitinated and degraded following receptor stimulation (5). Endocytosed membrane proteins either recycle back to the plasma membrane or are degraded. The conjugation of ubiquitin to a receptor leads to the recruitment of ubiquitin-binding proteins, adaptors that mediate transport of the substrate to the proteasome or lysosome for degradation. The ubiquitination cascade requires monomeric ubiquitin to be activated by the ubiquitin E1 enzyme, transferred to one of
40 E2 ubiquitin conjugases, and targeted to the acceptor residue, usually a lysine, of the target protein. This last reaction is catalyzed by one of around 400 ubiquitin E3 ligases that associate with the substrate and thus confer specificity to the ubiquitin reaction (6). The ligases are therefore the critical components of the reaction. The receptor tyrosine kinases were the first mammalian receptors shown to be ubiquitinated in a ligand-dependent manner (7, 8). Upon ligand binding the receptor tyrosine kinase is autophosphorylated, leading to recruitment of Cbl, a RING-type E3 ligase, which results in receptor ubiquitination, internalization, and lysosomal degradation. Mutation of the ubiquitin-targeted lysine residues in the cytoplasmic tail of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) prevents degradation and partially restores surface expression (9). Conversely overexpression of Cbl leads to reduced surface expression and ubiquitination of EGFR (10).
The membrane-associated RING-CH (MARCH) E3 ligases are a subfamily of the RING E3 ligases (11). Originally identified by viral E3 ligases involved in
-herpesvirus immunoevasion, the defining feature of this family is the presence of a RING-CH domain, a modification of the zinc-binding module seen in classical RING E3 ligases, which is essential for recruitment of the E2 ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme (12). The RING-CH family is characterized by an unusual spacing of the metal-binding ligands in the C4HC3 orientation as opposed to the more common C3HC4 arrangement, and the majority of family members contain two transmembrane domains connected by a short extracellular loop. The canonical members of this group, the K3 and K5 viral E3 ligases of Kaposi sarcoma-associated herpesvirus, down-regulate a number of critical immunoreceptors (13, 14). In contrast, substrates of the 11 cellular MARCH proteins remain only partially characterized (11), but two MARCH proteins, MARCH1 and MARCH8, down-regulate MHC class II molecules as well as CD86 expressed on antigen-presenting cells including dendritic cells and B cells (15, 16).
MARCH9 is predominantly expressed in B and T lymphocytes as well as dendritic cells (Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation SymAtlas (17)). Three potential MARCH9 substrates have been identified as overexpression of MARCH9 leads to down-regulation of CD4 and MHC class I molecules (11) as well as ICAM-1 (18). Because MARCH9 down-regulates three cell surface receptors of a limited number examined, we hypothesized that MARCH9 is likely to have additional substrates. However, identifying the substrates of E3 ligases remains challenging. The interaction between a ligase and its substrate is transient and difficult to trap, particularly so for integral membrane proteins as with MARCH9 and its potential substrates. We therefore chose to compare the cell surface expression of proteins in the presence and absence of MARCH9. Although this approach cannot prove whether a differentially expressed cell surface protein is a direct or indirect target for MARCH9, it does give a preliminary guide to the identification of potential substrates.
In this report we describe two approaches to analyze the effects of MARCH9 expression in a human B cell line. These include (i) high throughput flow cytometry using a panel of antibodies for proteins expressed on B cells and (ii) quantitative mass spectrometry of the plasma membrane proteome. Flow cytometry has the advantage of rapidly yielding quantitative data for those surface molecules where suitable and well characterized antibodies are available. In contrast, mass spectrometry allows a more objective comparison of the relative abundance of proteins between different cell types. We used stable isotope labeling by amino acids in cell culture (SILAC) (19) and looked for differentially expressed proteins from enriched plasma membranes of B cells overexpressing the MARCH9 E3 ligase. The mass spectrometry approach identified 12 potential MARCH9 substrates, six of which were subsequently confirmed by flow cytometry. Taken together our results demonstrate that the combined approach of flow cytometry and mass spectrometry provides a powerful way for identifying differentially regulated cell surface proteins and suggest an important role for MARCH9 in the regulation of lymphocyte function.
| EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES |
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Lentiviral Transduction
MARCH9 was cloned into pHRSIN Ub emerald (expressing the green fluorescent protein emerald under control of the ubiquitin promoter) (a kind gift from Yasuhiro Ikeda) and co-transfected into 293T cells together with pMD-G (encoding the vesicular stomatitis virus G envelope protein) and pCMVR8.91 (encoding the gag-pol fusion protein) at equimolar ratios to generate viral particles. Supernatants were filtrated through 0.45-µm membranes, and virus was precipitated by ultracentrifugation at 100,000 x g. Concentrated virus was used to transduce the Epstein-Barr virus-positive Burkitt lymphoma B cell line Hs-Sultan (a kind gift from Zou Xiang; ATCC CRL-1484) to generate Sultan-MARCH9 cells. Transduction efficiency was
50%. No highly GFP-positive cells were generated even after a second round of transduction; this is probably due to toxic effects of highly overexpressed MARCH9. We used the untransduced population as an internal control in the flow cytometry screen, whereas for isotope labeling the cells were sorted for GFP expression to exclude untransduced cells. Sultan-GFP control cells only expressing GFP were generated with virus derived from GFP-expressing pHRSIN-GFP Ub emerald.
High Throughput Flow Cytometry
Cells were washed in PBS, and Fc receptors were blocked with human IgG (50 µg/ml) for 15 min on ice. 5 x 104 cells/well were labeled in 96-well plates with either APC-conjugated or unconjugated antibody followed by Cy5-conjugated secondary antibody on ice in the presence of human IgG. Antibody staining was analyzed on a FACSCalibur with high throughput plate loader (BD Biosciences). Data were analyzed with FlowJo (Tree Star) and gated for the live cell population. Any further gating is indicated in the figures.
SILAC
Sultan-MARCH9 cells were grown in lysine- and arginine-free RPMI 1640 medium (Thermo Scientific) with 10% dialyzed FCS (JRH Biosciences) supplemented with isotope-labeled "heavy" [13C6,15N2]lysine (Lys8) and [13C6,15N4]arginine (Arg10) (100 µg/ml; Cambridge Isotope Laboratories), whereas Sultan-GFP cells were grown with normal "light" amino acids. The cells underwent at least seven cell divisions with medium changes every day to minimize cell death. Both cell lines divided at a similar rate.
Plasma Membrane Purification
The plasma membrane purification was performed using the cationic silica microbead isolation procedure (20) with modifications as described previously (21). Briefly 2 x 108 labeled Sultan-MARCH9 and Sultan-GFP cells were pooled and coated with cationic silica beads (Ludox-CL, Sigma), washed, and cross-linked with polyacrylic acid. The coated cells were incubated in hypotonic buffer and lysed by nitrogen cavitation (Cell Disruption Bomb, Parr Instrument Co.). The silica-coated plasma membrane fragments were then purified twice by sedimentation through a 70% Histodenz cushion. The pellet was washed three times with lysis buffer and five times with 0.1 M Na2CO3. Membrane proteins were extracted directly in SDS sample buffer, separated on a precast 4–12% Bis-Tris gel (Invitrogen), and Coomassie Blue-stained.
In-gel Proteolysis and Mass Spectrometry Analysis
The lane was cut into 10 slices that were washed with 100 mM ammonium bicarbonate (ABC). The proteins in the gel were reduced with 10 mM DTT at 60 °C for 30 min and alkylated with 10 mM iodoacetamide at room temperature for 30 min. The bands were washed with 50 mM ABC, 50% ACN solution and dehydrated with 100% ACN. The proteins were proteolyzed "in gel" overnight at 37 °C using modified trypsin (Promega) at a 1:100 enzyme-to-substrate ratio in 10 mM ABC, 10% ACN. Supernatants were transferred to new tubes. The resulting peptides were resolved by on-line reversed phase nanoscale capillary LC and analyzed by electrospray MS/MS. Using a NanoLC-1D plus system (Eksigent), peptides were resolved by 0.075-µm-inner diameter capillaries of about 20-cm length (J&W) packed in house with 3-µm Reprosil reversed phase material (Dr. Maisch GmbH). The peptides were eluted with linear 90-min gradients of 5–45% and 15 min at 95% acetonitrile with 0.1% formic acid in water at flow rates of 0.25 µl/min. The LC setup was connected to an LTQ-Orbitrap mass spectrometer (Thermo Fisher Scientific) equipped with a nanoelectrospray ion source. Data-dependent acquisition was performed on the LTQ-Orbitrap using the Xcalibur 2.04 software. Mass spectrometry was performed in a positive mode using repetitive full MS scans followed by CID of the seven most dominant ions selected from the first MS scan. Each mass was excluded from the mass list for 30 s following its fragmentation.
The mass spectrometry data were analyzed using Sequest 3.31 software (including Extract_msn for peak list generation) (J. Eng and J. Yates, University of Washington and Thermo Finnigan, San Jose, CA) searching against the human part of the UniProt database (November 2007) including 27,564 proteins. The search was for tryptic peptides with two missed cleavage sites. The peptide tolerance was set to 50 ppm, and fragment ion tolerance was set to 0.5 Da. Carbamidomethylcysteine was set as a fixed modification, and oxidized methionine and the SILAC labels (Lys8 and Arg10) were searched as variable modifications. The MS data were filtered according to the XCorr (above 2.2 for doubly charged peptides, 2.8 for triply charged peptides, and 3 for quadruply charged peptides), peptide probability (<0.09), and accuracy (<15 ppm). Using this combination of filters resulted in a false positive rate of 0.98%. The false positive rate was calculated by dividing the number of identified peptides using the reversed human UniProt database by the number of hits using the regular database.
The quantification was done using PepQuant (Thermo Fisher Scientific) to measure the peak area of each identified peptide at both heavy and light isotopes with a mass tolerance of 0.01 Da using combined scans. The H:L ratio of the protein was determined (by an in-house software tool) as an average of the ratio of its peptides excluding outlying peptides (more than 5-fold the average). Peptides that matched more than one protein were excluded from the quantitation with the exceptions specified in the next paragraph.
Non-unique Peptides
MHC molecules are highly polymorphic in their peptide binding domains with areas of sequence conservation that result in peptides mapping to multiple allelic variants of the same gene. Where peptides did map to variants of the same gene we included those and grouped them into HLA-A, -B, -DP, -DQ, and -DR (no HLA-C-specific peptides were identified). In addition to their polymorphism the MHC class II molecules are also heterodimeric proteins, and we grouped peptides mapping to either chain into HLA-DP and -DR. We list the MS results for HLA-DQA and -DQB separately to show how both chains are affected. For confirmation by flow cytometry a pan-MHC class I antibody and HLA-DP, -DQ, or -DR group-specific antibodies were used.
ILT-2 (LIRB1) and the related ILT-4 (LIRB2) were both only identified by the same single peptide. B cells only express ILT-2, and the expression can be analyzed by flow cytometry with an ILT-2-specific antibody. Consequently we included ILT-2 in our screen.
All other protein identifications were based on unique peptides only. In cases where both heavy and light peptide were identified by MS/MS and therefore independently quantified, both quantitations were used to calculate the average change in expression.
Transient Transfection, Metabolic Labeling, and Pulse-Chase Analysis
293T cells were transfected with pcDNA3-based expression constructs for Fc
RIIB or SLAM and pEGFP constructs of wild-type and mutant MARCH9 using TransIT 293 reagent (Mirus). 24 h later the cells were starved for 1 h in methionine- and cysteine-free medium, labeled with [35S]methionine and [35S]cysteine (12 MBq/ml; Easy Tag labeling mixture, PerkinElmer Life Sciences) for 20 min, and chased in medium containing excess cold methionine and cysteine for the indicated time periods. The cells were lysed in 1% Triton X-100 and precleared twice with CL-4B Sepharose beads (Sigma-Aldrich), and HA-tagged SLAM was precipitated with the HA.11 monoclonal antibody (clone 16B12, Covance) and protein A-Sepharose for 1 h, washed three times with 0.5% Triton X-100 in PBS, eluted in sample buffer, and heated to 95 °C for 10 min. For endoglycosidase H (Endo H) digestion samples were supplemented with 250 units of Endo H (New England Biolabs) and incubated at 37 °C for 1 h.
RNA Interference
65 h preanalysis, 293T cells were transfected with RNA oligonucleotides specific for Tsg101 (40) in Oligofectamine (Invitrogen) at a concentration of 30 nM siRNA. 24 h preanalysis the same cells were transiently transfected with SLAM and GFP-tagged MARCH9 with TransIT 293 reagent (Mirus). SLAM expression was analyzed by flow cytometry with SLAM-specific antibodies (clone A12, BioLegend); GFP fluorescence was used to assess MARCH9 expression. Tsg101 knockdown was confirmed by Western blot with a Tsg101-specific antibody.
| RESULTS |
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RIIB (CD32B), membrane-bound IgD, and PVR (CD155). Fc
RIIB, an inhibitory receptor for the Fc portion of antibodies, was reduced to background levels (indicated by the dotted line), whereas decreased expression of the central component of the B cell antigen receptor, membrane-bound IgD, was seen. Cell surface expression of the NK cell ligand PVR, which is down-regulated by the human cytomegalovirus (23), was reduced to background levels in MARCH9-expressing cells.
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10-fold enrichment. The occurrence of mitochondrial and nuclear proteins could be due to a small number of apoptotic or broken cells being coated with silica, resulting in a contamination with internal organelles. Our aim was to identify candidate proteins that are strongly down-regulated in the presence of MARCH9 and therefore represent potential novel substrates. Based on our flow cytometry results as well as the experience of other groups using SILAC (24), we used a 2-fold cutoff that identifies the stronger targets of MARCH9 such as ICAM-1 and Fc
RIIB, which showed a 2.3- and 3.6-fold down-regulation, respectively. In total, 12 plasma membrane proteins displayed changes above this threshold (Table I and Fig. 2B). These include three receptor-type tyrosine phosphatases, PTPRA (8.2-fold down; based on six different peptides), PTPRJ (CD148) (3.2-fold; 17 peptides), and PTPRF (2.5-fold; one peptide); the antigen-presenting molecule HLA-DQA (2.1-fold; 5 peptides) and -DQB chain (2.5-fold; 12 peptides) but not the closely related HLA-DR (unchanged; >10 peptides) or HLA-DP (unchanged; >10 peptides); the costimulatory molecule SLAM (CD150) (4.7-fold; three peptides); the inhibitory receptor ILT-2 (CD85j, LIR, or LILRB1) (2.3-fold; three peptides); the Fc receptor-related molecule FCRL2 (2-fold; two peptides); plexin C1/CD232 (2-fold; four peptides), an inhibitor of integrin-mediated adhesion of dendritic cells; the soluble N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor attachment protein receptor VAMP8 (2.4-fold; six peptides) involved in endocytic vesicle fusion; and a protein of unknown function, TMEM2 (2.2-fold; two peptides). No peptides specific for IgD were identified, but five peptides mapping to the closely related IgM gave a 1.7-fold change that would have been considered borderline without the previous identification of IgD as a potential substrate. No specific peptides for PVR were detected.
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RIIB, SLAM, PTPRJ, ILT-2, and HLA-DQ), allowing us to validate the SILAC MS/MS results using an alternative technique. By flow cytometric analysis we confirmed a marked decrease in cell surface expression of all six targets (Fig. 3). In these experiments MARCH1-overexpressing Sultan cells served as a control. MARCH1 is a related RING-CH E3 ligase, also expressed in B cells, that down-regulates MHC class II as well as B7.2 (16). Although MARCH1 does not discriminate between MHC class II molecules, MARCH9, as originally shown by mass spectrometry, only down-regulated HLA-DQ leaving both HLA-DR and HLA-DP unaffected (Fig. 3B).
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We wanted to determine how the change in cell surface expression of proteins detected by mass spectrometry correlated with flow cytometry, the gold standard for quantitative analysis of cell surface receptor expression. The -fold change in expression levels for all proteins detected by both mass spectrometry and flow cytometry was therefore compared (Fig. 4). This analysis allows a direct assessment of the correlation and therefore the quality of the mass spectrometry data. The correlation coefficient of 0.93 indicates a remarkably strong correlation between the two methodologies.
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RIIB (Fig. 5A). Transfection of the same cells with a mutant MARCH9-GFP fusion construct containing a previously characterized tryptophan to alanine mutation in the K3 RING-CH domain that prevents E2 binding (12, 27) no longer down-regulated Fc
RIIB or SLAM surface expression. The E3 ligase activity of MARCH9 is therefore required for substrate down-regulation (Fig. 5A).
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The localization of MARCH9 to lysosomes suggests a role in lysosomal degradation of receptor proteins (18). Tsg101 is a critical component of the endosomal sorting complex required for transport (ESCRT) pathway involved in the recognition of ubiquitinated cargo for delivery to multivesicular bodies for endolysosomal degradation (41). We therefore assessed the role of Tsg101 in MARCH9-mediated SLAM down-regulation. 293T cells were depleted of Tsg101 by siRNA and subsequently co-transfected with GFP-tagged wild-type or RING tryptophan to alanine mutant MARCH9 and SLAM (Fig. 5C). Following Tsg101 depletion, SLAM expression was restored at the cell surface in the MARCH9 (GFP-positive) population. In the presence of the MARCH9 tryptophan to alanine RING mutant, SLAM remained well expressed at the cell surface and was unaffected by Tsg101 depletion. Taken together these results suggest that MARCH9-mediated SLAM down-regulation occurs in the late secretory pathway and that SLAM is degraded via an endolysosomal pathway.
| DISCUSSION |
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MARCH9 is a membrane-bound ubiquitin E3 ligase that can regulate expression of an increasing number of plasma membrane receptors. We identified 13 novel plasma membrane proteins whose expression was decreased in the presence of MARCH9 (Table II). Flow cytometry initially identified three new candidate substrates with decreased expression on the surface of MARCH9-expressing cells and has the advantage of being sensitive and easily reproducible but requires a large set of antibodies and remains therefore cost-prohibitive (Fig. 1B). The quantitative proteomics analysis identified over 900 proteins of which 157 (16%) were plasma membrane proteins according to UniProt annotations. Twelve of these proteins showed at least a 2-fold reduction in expression in the presence of MARCH9 (Table I). All six of the potential MARCH9 substrates for which monoclonal antibodies were available (Fc
RIIB (CD32B), ICAM-1 (CD54), ILT-2 (CD85j), PTPRJ (CD148), SLAM (CD150), and HLA-DQ) were confirmed by flow cytometry as being decreased in MARCH9-expressing cells (Fig. 3).
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RIIB, and HLA-DQ), all of which showed at least a 3-fold change in expression by flow cytometry. A role for ubiquitin in receptor regulation is well characterized for the receptor tyrosine kinases, as exemplified by the epidermal growth factor receptor (10), but to our knowledge this has not been reported for receptor tyrosine phosphatases. Substrate-induced phosphorylation of EGFR not only initiates signaling but also recruits the Cbl ubiquitin E3 ligase that terminates signaling by binding and ubiquitinating its target receptor and in the case of EGFR promotes internalization and endosomal sorting for lysosomal degradation. Receptor protein-tyrosine phosphatases such as PTPRJ (CD148) and PTPRC (CD45) play an important regulatory role in T and B cell signaling where they activate Src family kinases by dephosphorylating the inhibitory tyrosine in the tail of the kinase (29). PTPRA, also an activator of Src family kinases (30), showed the strongest down-regulation by MS, giving an 8-fold change with a narrow standard deviation from six different peptides. PTPRF is the third member of this family affected by MARCH9 but represents a weak hit as it was only identified by a single peptide and, like PTPRA, lacks an antibody for confirmation by flow cytometry. Although little is known about the regulation of the protein receptor tyrosine phosphatases, the important role of PTPRJ (CD148) and other tyrosine phosphatases in B and T cell signaling suggests that their regulation by E3 ligases could be of major significance.
One of the most marked differences in cell surface expression induced by MARCH9 was seen with SLAM (CD150), a costimulatory molecule expressed on lymphocytes (for a review, see Ref. 25). SLAM stimulation supports B cell proliferation and differentiation (31), whereas the SLAM knock-out mouse shows a reduction in IL-4 secretion by T cells and impaired macrophage function (32). SLAM triggers tyrosine phosphorylation via interaction with an adaptor molecule, SAP, which recruits the Src-related protein-tyrosine kinase FynT. The SLAM/SAP pathway plays an essential role in the development of the innate immune system, in particular NKT cells. Lack of SAP leads to NKT cell deficiency and a dysregulation of immune responses exemplified by the X-linked lymphoproliferative disorder. SAP is also essential for T cell function as SAP-deficient CD4+ T cells show a reduced ability to stimulate B cells, whereas CD8+ T cells are defective in cytolytic granule secretion. In this regard, the reduced expression of the vesicle-associated membrane protein VAMP8 in MARCH9-expressing cells is of interest as VAMP8 is an important mediator of endosomal vesicle fusion and regulated granule secretion (33–35).
The basis of substrate selection and specificity by MARCH9 is not understood. Studies of other RING-CH proteins have shown a requirement for substrate interactions within the membrane. MARCH9 carries a charged residue (aspartate) in its second transmembrane region, which partially inhibits down-regulation of MHC-I, supporting a role for this region in target identification (18). The situation appears more complex with respect to HLA-DQ, another newly identified MARCH9 target. Although the related MARCH1 and MARCH8 E3 ligases down-regulate all three MHC class II alleles (HLA-DP, -DQ, and -DR) MARCH9 had an unanticipated effect on decreasing cell surface expression of HLA-DQ alone with no effect on HLA-DP or -DR. The transmembrane regions of the HLA-DQ heterodimer (HLA-DQ
and -DQβ) are almost identical to those of HLA-DR (HLA-DR
and -DRβ) (Fig. 3C) and are unlikely to be the discriminating factor for HLA-DQ down-regulation. HLA-DQ may represent an indirect target of MARCH9, i.e. an example where MARCH9 down-regulates an upstream target whose expression is required for HLA-DQ. HLA-DQ expression does require an unidentified additional cellular cofactor as interspecies somatic cell hybrids of the AIR-1 (class II transactivator)-defective human B cell line RJ 2.2.5 with mouse B cells rescues the surface expression of HLA-DR and -DP but not HLA-DQ despite normal expression of HLA-DQ transcripts (36, 37). Whether HLA-DQ or its predicted cofactor is the true target of MARCH9 needs to be determined.
The fourth potential target identified by quantitative mass spectrometry as well as flow cytometry is the Fc
RIIB (CD32B). Fc
RIIB is the only inhibitory Fc receptor for IgG and plays an important role in regulation of B cell receptor signaling (38). IgD, which showed a strong down-regulation by flow cytometry (Fig. 1B), is the antigen-binding part of the B cell receptor (39) and the only component that could be detected at satisfactory levels by flow cytometry. Whether there is a connection between the down-regulation of Fc
RIIB and IgD remains to be investigated.
MARCH9 is expressed in lysosomal compartments (18), and degradation of a previously identified MARCH9 substrate occurred via a lysosomal pathway (11). For two of the newly identified targets (Fc
RIIb and SLAM), down-regulation was dependent on E3 ligase activity as a mutant RING, which is unable to recruit an E2-conjugating enzyme, did not cause receptor down-regulation (Fig. 5A). Further examination of the SLAM protein showed that only Endo H-resistant forms were degraded in the presence of MARCH9 with a 3.4-fold reduction in half-life of Endo H-resistant SLAM and no effect on Endo H-sensitive SLAM (Fig. 5B). For this receptor, as for the few other receptors examined (11), MARCH9 does not use endoplasmic reticulum-associated protein degradation but causes substrate degradation in the late secretory pathway. This was confirmed by depleting cells of Tsg101, a critical component of the ESCRT1 complex (41). We previously showed that depletion of Tsg101 inhibits the K3-dependent, lysosomal degradation of MHC class I (40), and Tsg101 depletion also rescued cell surface SLAM expression in MARCH9-expressing cells (Fig. 5C). SLAM expression was not increased above steady state levels in cells expressing the RING tryptophan to alanine mutant form of MARCH9, suggesting that Tsg101 depletion in MARCH9-expressing cells causes SLAM to recycle back to the cell surface. Therefore, in the presence of MARCH9, SLAM is degraded via an endolysosomal route, although this needs to be confirmed for other MARCH9 substrates.
The plasma membrane remains a challenging compartment to purify, and using the modified form of the colloidal silica technique we identified 157 plasma membrane proteins (including 145 transmembrane proteins). Despite extensive washing with carbonate buffer, we still had a substantial contamination mainly from abundant cytosolic and nuclear proteins. However, only one (DHX29) of the
800 non-plasma membrane proteins identified by at least two peptides showed a significant decrease in the presence of MARCH9. This result substantiates our initial assumption that MARCH9 predominantly targets membrane proteins. One of the cytoplasmic proteins, SH3BP1, displayed a significant change in expression (6.8-fold down), but this was only seen on a single peptide. SH3BP1 is a member of the GTPase-activating protein family interacting with and inactivating plasma membrane-bound Rho GTPases. If confirmed, this down-regulation might represent an example of an indirect effect caused by down-regulation of the unspecified interaction partner at the membrane. A few cytosolic, mitochondrial, and nuclear proteins appeared to be up-regulated in the presence of MARCH9, but on closer inspection many of these turned out to be based on single peptide identifications or outliers resulting in a high standard deviation (see supplemental data). One interesting exception is Hu antigen R (ELAV1), an mRNA stabilizing factor that was
2.5-fold up-regulated. It remains to be investigated whether that is a response of the cell to the degradative effect of MARCH9.
Recently Bartee et al. (22) took a similar approach, isolating different membrane fractions from SILAC-labeled HeLa cells to identify novel substrates of the viral E3 ligase K5. K5 is related to the MARCH family and is reported to down-regulate both ER as well as plasma membrane proteins. Following the enrichment of ER, Golgi apparatus, and plasma membrane fractions three novel K5 substrates were identified, including activated lymphocyte cell adhesion molecule (CD166), which they showed to also be down-regulated by MARCH9. Direct comparison of the two studies is difficult, but the combined experience suggests that SILAC is particularly powerful for examination of enriched individual organelles rather than the whole membrane fraction. Five of the confirmed targets of MARCH9 are exclusively expressed in immune cells, and additional targets might be identified in other cell types.
Our comparative analysis of the plasma membrane proteome identified new potential targets of MARCH9 and provided important candidate substrates to help elucidate the physiological role of this poorly characterized E3 ligase. The quantitative mass spectrometry of plasma membrane proteins by SILAC proved a powerful technique to identify alterations in cell surface receptor abundance. The rapid validation of the new finds by flow cytometry makes this a particularly attractive approach. The same methodology can be applied to determine the effect of other host- or pathogen-derived gene products on plasma membrane receptor expression as well as to quantify changes in receptor expression during cellular activation or differentiation.
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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| FOOTNOTES |
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* This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust and Cambridge University Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre. ![]()
The on-line version of this article (available at http://www.mcponline.org) contains supplemental material. ![]()
1 The abbreviations used are: NK, natural killer; CIITA, MHC class II transactivator encoded by the gene AIR-1 (activator of immune response locus 1); CD, cluster of differentiation; EGFR, epidermal growth factor receptor; Fc
R, Fc
receptor; GFP, green fluorescent protein; HLA, human leukocyte antigen; ICAM, intercellular adhesion molecule; Ig, immunoglobulin; MARCH, membrane-associated RING-CH; MHC, major histocompatibility complex; PTPR, protein-tyrosine phosphatase, receptor type; PVR, polio virus receptor; RING, really interesting new gene; RING-CH, variant RING domain, structurally related; SAP, SLAM-associated protein, also named SH2D1A; SH3BP1, Abl-SH3 domain-binding protein; SILAC, stable isotope labeling by amino acids in cell culture; SLAM, signaling lymphocytic activation molecule, also CD150; VAMP, vesicle-associated membrane protein; E1, ubiquitin-activating enzyme; E2, ubiquitin carrier protein; E3, ubiquitin-protein isopeptide ligase; APC, allophycocyanin; Bis-Tris, 2-[bis(2-hydroxyethyl)amino]-2-(hydroxymethyl)propane-1,3-diol; ABC, ammonium bicarbonate; LTQ, linear trap quadrupole; HA, hemagglutinin; Endo H, endoglycosidase H; siRNA, short interfering RNA; LIR, leukocyte immunoglobulin-like receptor; ER, endoplasmic reticulum; ESCRT, endosomal sorting complex required for transport; H, heavy; L, light..
¶ A Lister Prize Fellow. To whom correspondence should be addressed: Cambridge Inst. for Medical Research, University of Cambridge, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Hills Rd., Cambridge CB2 0XY, UK. Tel.: 44-1223-762113; Fax: 44-1223-762640; E-mail: pjl30{at}cam.ac.uk.
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