Patterns of ubiquitylation and SUMOylation associated with exposure to anoxia in embryos of the annual killifish Austrofundulus limnaeus.

Abstract

Embryos of the annual killifish Austrofundulus limnaeus acquire extreme tolerance to anoxia during embryonic development. These embryos can survive environmental and cellular conditions that would likely result in death in the majority of vertebrate cells, despite experiencing a massive loss of ATP. It is highly likely that the initial response to anoxia must quickly alter cellular physiology to reprogram cell signaling and metabolic pathways to support anaerobiosis. Covalent protein modifications are a mechanism that can quickly act to effect large-scale changes in protein structure and function and have been suggested by others to play a key role in mammalian ischemia tolerance. Using Western blot analysis, we explored patterns of protein ubiquitylation and SUMOylation in embryos of A. limnaeus exposed to anoxia and anoxic preconditioning. Surprisingly, we report stage-specific protein ubiquitylation patterns that suggest different mechanisms for altering protein turnover in dormant and actively developing embryos that both survive long-term anoxia. Anoxic preconditioning does not appear to alter levels of ubiquitin conjugates in a unique manner. Global SUMOylation of proteins does not change in response to anoxia, but there are stage-specific changes in SUMOylation of specific protein bands. Contrary to other systems, global changes in protein SUMOylation may not be required to support long-term tolerance to anoxia in embryos of A. limnaeus. These data lead us to conclude that embryos of A. limnaeus respond to anoxia in a unique manner compared to other vertebrate models of anoxia tolerance and may provide novel mechanisms for engineering vertebrate tissues to survive long-term anoxia.