Too Much of a Bad Thing: Protein Aggregates Snarl Nuclear Traffic

Amyloid-β, TDP-43, huntingtin, and indeed many other proteins linked to neurodegeneration have one thing in common—they aggregate. And those aggregates, whatever their makeup, seem to share another characteristic according to a paper in the December 3 Science online—they all interfere with transport between the nucleus and cytoplasm. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany, discovered the phenomenon when studying aggregation of both natural and artificial proteins. “I believe [this] is a general mechanism behind the different diseases associated with protein aggregation,” co-senior author Mark Hipp told Alzforum.

No exit.

In cells accumulating aggregates (red) of Htt96Q, TDP-43, or a 17-amino-acid artificial cytoplasmic peptide (NES-β17), mRNA (green) gets stuck in the nucleus (blue). It easily slips into the cytoplasm in control cells, or cells expressing a nuclear version of β-17 (NLS-β17). [Courtesy of Science/AAAS.]

Earlier this year, scientists discovered that hexanucleotide repeats in the C9ORF72 gene, which cause amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia, interfere with traffic across the nuclear pore, perhaps due to abnormal poly-dipeptide aggregates encoded by the expansion (see Aug 2015 news). The RNA-binding protein TDP-43, which normally shuttles back and forth between nucleus and cytoplasm, also aggregates in ALS and becomes trapped in the cytoplasm (see Jan 2010 news; Feb 2014 news). In Alzheimer’s too, nucleocytoplasmic transport falters, while in Huntington’s disease, huntingtin aggregates disrupt the nuclear envelope, hinting that they might interfere with traffic as well (Liu et al., 2015; Mastroeni et al., 2013). Hipp and co-senior author Ulrich Hartl wondered if amyloidogenic proteins affect nucleocytoplasmic transport in similar ways, and if the cellular location of those aggregates was important.

To address these questions, first author Andreas Woerner and colleagues started with artificial proteins that form β-sheets and fibrillar aggregates (West et al., 1999; Olzscha et al., 2011). Called β17 and β23, these lacked repetitive sequences that might also contribute to their toxicity, but did aggregate in the cytoplasm and nucleus of a kidney cell line. To restrict their whereabouts, the authors attached nuclear localization and nuclear export sequences. The aggregates were more toxic in the cytoplasm than the nucleus. Furthermore, cytoplasmic aggregates recruited and sequestered nuclear pore members and transport factors.

In so doing, the aggregates altered nucleocytoplasmic transport. A green fluorescent protein tagged with nuclear import and export signals tended to get stuck in the nucleus. Similarly, the naturally aggregating polyglutamine expansion from huntingtin prevented GFP trafficking. Cytoplasmic β17 or β23, huntingtin, or a cytoplasmic fragment of TDP-43 blocked export of messenger RNA as well (see image above). Aggregates also interfered with mRNA transport in neuronal cultures.

“Protein aggregates in the cytoplasm, but not in the nucleus, inhibit transport of proteins and mRNA across the nuclear envelope,” concluded Hipp. However, that does not mean reduced nucleocytoplasmic transport is necessarily the primary toxicity in various kinds of neurodegeneration, he said. Other factors such as repetitive sequences or loss of soluble protein could still contribute.

However, Hipp suggests that altered nucleocytoplasmic traffic could be a common characteristic of neurodegenerative diseases that might be amenable to treatment. Scientists are already investigating small molecules that affect nucleocytoplasmic transport, normalizing protein levels inside and outside the nucleus (see Aug 2015 news).—Amber Dance

Comments

  1. I think this paper provides nice mechanistic insight into the nuclei-cytoplasmic transport defects that my paper and the Rothstein Nature paper demonstrated (Freibaum et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2015) and further suggests that protein rather than RNA toxicity might be the more important factor in C9orf72-mediated neurotoxicity. The mislocalization of THOC2 and the suggestion of RNA processing defects in disease is consistent with our identification of THOC4(ALYREF), the nuclear cap binding complex (NCBP1, NCBP2, ARS2), and exosomal subunits as genetic interactors of C9orf72 mediated toxicity.

    References:

    Freibaum BD, Lu Y, Lopez-Gonzalez R, Kim NC, Almeida S, Lee KH, Badders N, Valentine M, Miller BL, Wong PC, Petrucelli L, Kim HJ, Gao FB, Taylor JP. GGGGCC repeat expansion in C9orf72 compromises nucleocytoplasmic transport. Nature. 2015 Sep 3;525(7567):129-33. Epub 2015 Aug 26 PubMed.

    Zhang K, Donnelly CJ, Haeusler AR, Grima JC, Machamer JB, Steinwald P, Daley EL, Miller SJ, Cunningham KM, Vidensky S, Gupta S, Thomas MA, Hong I, Chiu SL, Huganir RL, Ostrow LW, Matunis MJ, Wang J, Sattler R, Lloyd TE, Rothstein JD. The C9orf72 repeat expansion disrupts nucleocytoplasmic transport. Nature. 2015 Sep 3;525(7567):56-61. Epub 2015 Aug 26 PubMed.

    View all comments by Brian Freibaum

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References

News Citations

  1. ALS Gene Repeats Obstruct Traffic Between Nucleus and Cytoplasm
  2. TDP-43: Modified and On the Move
  3. Escort Service: A Cytoplasmic Role for TDP-43

Paper Citations

  1. Liu KY, Shyu YC, Barbaro BA, Lin YT, Chern Y, Thompson LM, James Shen CK, Marsh JL. Disruption of the nuclear membrane by perinuclear inclusions of mutant huntingtin causes cell-cycle re-entry and striatal cell death in mouse and cell models of Huntington's disease. Hum Mol Genet. 2015 Mar 15;24(6):1602-16. Epub 2014 Nov 14 PubMed.
  2. Mastroeni D, Chouliaras L, Grover A, Liang WS, Hauns K, Rogers J, Coleman PD. Reduced RAN expression and disrupted transport between cytoplasm and nucleus; a key event in Alzheimer's disease pathophysiology. PLoS One. 2013;8(1):e53349. PubMed.
  3. West MW, Wang W, Patterson J, Mancias JD, Beasley JR, Hecht MH. De novo amyloid proteins from designed combinatorial libraries. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1999 Sep 28;96(20):11211-6. PubMed.
  4. Olzscha H, Schermann SM, Woerner AC, Pinkert S, Hecht MH, Tartaglia GG, Vendruscolo M, Hayer-Hartl M, Hartl FU, Vabulas RM. Amyloid-like aggregates sequester numerous metastable proteins with essential cellular functions. Cell. 2011 Jan 7;144(1):67-78. PubMed.

Further Reading

Papers

  1. van Blitterswijk M, Rademakers R. Neurodegenerative disease: C9orf72 repeats compromise nucleocytoplasmic transport. Nat Rev Neurol. 2015 Dec;11(12):670-2. Epub 2015 Nov 3 PubMed.
  2. Edbauer D, Haass C. An amyloid-like cascade hypothesis for C9orf72 ALS/FTD. Curr Opin Neurobiol. 2016 Feb;36:99-106. Epub 2015 Nov 8 PubMed.
  3. Mertens J, Paquola AC, Ku M, Hatch E, Böhnke L, Ladjevardi S, McGrath S, Campbell B, Lee H, Herdy JR, Gonçalves JT, Toda T, Kim Y, Winkler J, Yao J, Hetzer MW, Gage FH. Directly Reprogrammed Human Neurons Retain Aging-Associated Transcriptomic Signatures and Reveal Age-Related Nucleocytoplasmic Defects. Cell Stem Cell. 2015 Oct 6; PubMed.
  4. Mor A, White MA, Fontoura BM. Nuclear trafficking in health and disease. Curr Opin Cell Biol. 2014 Jun;28:28-35. Epub 2014 Feb 11 PubMed.

Primary Papers

  1. Woerner AC, Frottin F, Hornburg D, Feng LR, Meissner F, Patra M, Tatzelt J, Mann M, Winklhofer KF, Hartl FU, Hipp MS. Cytoplasmic protein aggregates interfere with nucleocytoplasmic transport of protein and RNA. Science. 2016 Jan 8;351(6269):173-6. Epub 2015 Dec 3 PubMed.

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