TY - JOUR
T1 - Phosphorylation of the aggregate-forming protein alpha-synuclein on serine-129 inhibits its DNA-bending properties
AU - Dent, Sydney E.
AU - King, Dennisha P.
AU - Osterberg, Valerie R.
AU - Adams, Eleanor K.
AU - Mackiewicz, Marilyn R.
AU - Weissman, Tamily A.
AU - Unni, Vivek K.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments—Electron microscopy was performed at the Multiscale Microscopy Core (MMC) with the technical assistance of Dr Claudia López. The MMC is a member of the OHSU University Shared Resource Cores. We would like to thank Nicole Owen and Irina Minko for technical assistance and helpful discussions, Amanda McCullough, R. Stephen Lloyd, Allison Schaser, Sydney Boutros, Teresa Stackhouse, Jon Savage, Ujwal Shinde, and Randall Woltjer for helpful discussions. Figure 8, A and B, Figs. S6 and S7 created with the PyMOL Molecular Graphics System, Version 2.0 Schrödinger, LLC. Figure 8C was created with BioRender.com. This work was supported in part by the NIH (grants NS102227, NS096190), the David Johnson Family Foundation, the Oregon Tax Checkoff Alzheimer’s Research Fund, and the American Parkinson Disease Association. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 THE AUTHORS.
PY - 2022/2/1
Y1 - 2022/2/1
N2 - Alpha-synuclein (aSyn) is a vertebrate protein, normally found within the presynaptic nerve terminal and nucleus, which is known to form somatic and neuritic aggregates in certain neurodegenerative diseases. Disease-associated aggregates of aSyn are heavily phosphorylated at serine-129 (pSyn), while normal aSyn protein is not. Within the nucleus, aSyn can directly bind DNA, but the mechanism of binding and the potential modulatory roles of phosphorylation are poorly understood. Here we demonstrate using a combination of electrophoretic mobility shift assay and atomic force microscopy approaches that both aSyn and pSyn can bind DNA within the major groove, in a DNA length-dependent manner and with little specificity for DNA sequence. Our data are consistent with a model in which multiple aSyn molecules bind a single 300 base pair (bp) DNA molecule in such a way that stabilizes the DNA in a bent conformation. We propose that serine-129 phosphorylation decreases the ability of aSyn to both bind and bend DNA, as aSyn binds 304 bp circular DNA forced into a bent shape, but pSyn does not. Two aSyn paralogs, beta- and gamma-synuclein, also interact with DNA differently than aSyn, and do not stabilize similar DNA conformations. Our work suggests that reductions in aSyn’s ability to bind and bend DNA induced by serine-129 phosphorylation may be important for modulating aSyn’s known roles in DNA metabolism, including the regulation of transcription and DNA repair.
AB - Alpha-synuclein (aSyn) is a vertebrate protein, normally found within the presynaptic nerve terminal and nucleus, which is known to form somatic and neuritic aggregates in certain neurodegenerative diseases. Disease-associated aggregates of aSyn are heavily phosphorylated at serine-129 (pSyn), while normal aSyn protein is not. Within the nucleus, aSyn can directly bind DNA, but the mechanism of binding and the potential modulatory roles of phosphorylation are poorly understood. Here we demonstrate using a combination of electrophoretic mobility shift assay and atomic force microscopy approaches that both aSyn and pSyn can bind DNA within the major groove, in a DNA length-dependent manner and with little specificity for DNA sequence. Our data are consistent with a model in which multiple aSyn molecules bind a single 300 base pair (bp) DNA molecule in such a way that stabilizes the DNA in a bent conformation. We propose that serine-129 phosphorylation decreases the ability of aSyn to both bind and bend DNA, as aSyn binds 304 bp circular DNA forced into a bent shape, but pSyn does not. Two aSyn paralogs, beta- and gamma-synuclein, also interact with DNA differently than aSyn, and do not stabilize similar DNA conformations. Our work suggests that reductions in aSyn’s ability to bind and bend DNA induced by serine-129 phosphorylation may be important for modulating aSyn’s known roles in DNA metabolism, including the regulation of transcription and DNA repair.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jbc.2021.101552
DO - 10.1016/j.jbc.2021.101552
M3 - Article
C2 - 34973339
AN - SCOPUS:85123570567
VL - 298
JO - Journal of Biological Chemistry
JF - Journal of Biological Chemistry
SN - 0021-9258
IS - 2
M1 - 101552
ER -