Knockdown Of GCN2 Research Articles

Investigation of a Mitochondrial to Nuclear Signaling Pathway Induced by Onc201

Onc201 is a novel therapeutic in clinical trials that displays widespread anti-cancer activity and also has been shown to act as a radiosensitizer. Previously, we showed that Onc201 and its derivatives activate a mitochondrial protease, ClpP, resulting in mitochondrial protein degradation, induction of ATF4/CHOP and cytostatic activity in a breast cancer cell line. However, how activation of ClpP, a mitochondrial protease, signals to the nucleus has not been established. We show here that Onc201 induces GDF15, a mitochondrial stress cytokine, and further delineate the upstream signaling pathways. The aim of these studies is to better understand mechanisms of mitochondrial to nuclear signaling to allow for more effective anti-cancer strategies to be developed.To monitor mitochondrial to nuclear signaling, Sum159, a breast cancer cell line, was treated with Onc201 or its derivatives, and monitored for ATF4 or GDF15 protein expression by Western blotting. Delineation of the signaling pathways involved was achieved using siRNA directed against various targets or by use of specific kinase inhibitors.Treatment of Sum159 cells with Onc201 resulted in the induction of GDF15 and ATF4 protein as early as ∼17 hours after treatment. Using siRNA knockdowns, we found that GDF15 induction is dependent upon ClpP, ATF4, and CHOP. However, knockdown of GCN2 or HRI, which are eiF2a kinases known to regulate ATF4, had no effect on GDF15, nor did siRNA against IRE1a. Because we found that Onc201 induced Erk, Akt and AMPK activity, we targeted these pathways with specific kinase inhibitors; however, none of these pathways were required for GDF15 induction. These results suggest that other pathways may be involved in the induction of ATF4 and GDF15 and these are currently under investigation.We and others have shown that Onc201 and related molecules, activate ClpP, a mitochondrial protease resulting in rapid mitochondrial protein degradation, loss of mitochondrial function, and cytostasis or apoptosis in a variety of cancer cell lines. Importantly, Onc201 shows very low toxicity to normal cell lines and is well tolerated in patients. However, additional stratagems need to be explored to improve the efficacy of Onc201. To this end, we sought to understand how mitochondrial to nuclear signaling occurs as a way to target this pathway. These results establish that ATF4/CHOP signaling is induced and this subsequently signals to induce GDF15. However, it still remains unclear how ATF4/CHOP expression is induced and this area is currently being investigated.

Downregulation of General Control Nonderepressible 2/Eukaryotic Initiation Factor 2α Attenuates Inflammation, Oxidative Stress and Cell Apoptosis in Retinal Cells Induced by High Glucose

Background: Diabetic retinopathy (DR), the frequent complication of diabetes mellitus, has been the main factor of clinical blindness. It is of great clinical significance to seek a novel therapeutic target of DR. The present study aims to investigate the important role of GCN2/eIF2α in DR and the underlying mechanism. Materials and Methods: The expression levels of GCN2 and p-eIF2α were measured by western blot assay and q-PCR. The inflammation levels were assessed by ELISA assay and oxidative stress was measured by colorimetric method. Then, the key proteins related to the function of endothelial cell were measured by western blot assay. Cell apoptotic rate was detected by flow cytometry and proteins related to cell apoptosis were detected by western blot assay. Results: High glucose activated GCN2/eIF2α signaling pathway in HRCECs. Downregulation of GCN2 attenuated HG-induced cell apoptosis, inflammatory and oxidative stress in HRCECs. Meanwhile, downregulation of GCN2 ameliorated HG-induced endothelial cell dysfunction. Inhibition of GCN2 inhibited p-eIF2α, ATF4, CHOP and activated UCP2. Conclusion: The results in this study proved that knockdown of GCN2 could significantly mitigate HG-induced injury, suggesting GCN2/eIF2α as a potential target for DR therapy.

Tissue-specific roles of GCN2 in aging and autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa

The organisms have the capacity to sense and adapt to their surroundings for their life in a dynamic environment. In response to amino acid starvation, cells activate a rectifying physiological program, termed the integrated stress response (ISR), to restore cellular homeostasis. General controlled non-repressed (GCN2) kinase is a master regulator of the ISR and modulates protein synthesis in response to amino acid starvation. We previously established the GCN2/ATF4/4E-BP pathway in development and aging. Here, we investigated the tissue-specific roles of GCN2 upon dietary restriction of amino acid in a Drosophila model. The knockdown of GCN2 in the gut and fat body, an energy sensing organ in Drosophila, abolished the beneficial effect of GCN2 in lifespan extension upon dietary restriction of amino acids. Proteome analysis in an autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa (ADRP) model showed that dietary restriction of amino acids regulates the synthesis of proteins in several pathways, including mitochondrial translation, mitochondrial gene expression, and regulation of biological quality, and that gcn2-mutant flies have reduced levels of these mitochondria-associated proteins, which may contribute to retinal degeneration in ADRP. These results indicate that the tissue-specific regulation of GCN2 contributes to normal physiology and ADRP progression.

Angiogenesis Induced By Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetase Deficiency Is Dependent on Amino Acid Response (AAR) but Not Unfolded Protein Response (UPR) Pathways

Stress-induced angiogenesis enormously contributes to both normal development and pathogenesis of various diseases including cancer. Among many stress response pathways implicated in regulation of angiogenesis, the amino acid response (AAR) and the unfolded protein response (UPR) pathways are closely interconnected, as they converge on the common target, eIF2α, which is a key regulator of protein translation. Two kinases, namely Gcn2 (Eif2ak4) and Perk (Eif2ak3), are responsible for transducing signals from AAR and UPR, respectively, to phosphorylation of eIF2α. Even though numerous studies have been performed, this close interconnection between AAR and UPR makes it difficult to clearly distinguish different contributions of these two pathways in regulation of angiogenesis.In this study, we generated a zebrafish angiogenic model harboring a loss-of-function mutation of the threonyl-tRNA synthetase (tars) gene. Tars belongs to a family of evolutionarily conserved enzymes, aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRSs), which control the first step of protein translation through coupling specific amino acids with their cognate tRNAs. Deficiencies of several aaRSs in zebrafish have been shown to cause increased branching of blood vessels, and this angiogenic phenotype has roughly been explained by activation of AAR and UPR; however, it is unclear whether both AAR and UPR are required and to what extent they contribute to this process. To address this issue, we first performed RNA-seq analyses of Tars-mutated and control zebrafish embryos, as well as those with knockdown of either Gcn2 or Perk in both genotypes. We found that the AAR target genes are dramatically activated in the Tars-mutants, whereas the genes associated with the three UPR sub-pathways (i.e., Perk-, Ire1- and Atf6-mediated pathways) remain inactive, except for very few genes (e.g., Atf3, Atf4, Asns and Igfbp1) that are shared in both AAR and UPR, thus suggesting activation of AAR, but not UPR, in the Tars-mutants. In support of this notion, knockdown of the AAR-associated kinase Gcn2 in the Tars-mutants largely represses the activated genes, while the Perk knockdown shows very little effect. Nonetheless, in contrast to the apparently dispensable role of Perk in Tars-mutants, knockdown of Perk in control embryos leads to specific gene expression alterations, suggesting that Perk effectively functions in homeostatic states (i.e., controls), but, in the stress condition (i.e., Tars-mutants), its function is largely overwhelmed by activation of the Gcn2-mediated AAR.To validate these observations, we investigated the angiogenic phenotypes of the zebrafish models upon genetic and pharmacological interference with the AAR and UPR pathways. A transgenic zebrafish line, Tg(flk1:EGFP), was crossed with the Tars-mutants to visualize angiogenesis in vivo. We observed increased branching of blood vessels in the Tars-mutants, which is rescued by tars mRNA but not an enzymatically dead version. Importantly, knockdown of Gcn2 in the Tars-mutants rescues this phenotype. In contrast, knockdown of Perk, or knockdown of two other known eIF2α kinases, Hri (Eif2ak1) or Pkr (Eif2ak2), shows no effect. Furthermore, knockdown of either one of two major factors downstream to eIF2α, namely Atf4 and Vegfα, or inhibition of Vegf receptor with the drug SU5416, also rescue the phenotype. Thus, these results confirm that AAR, but not UPR, is required for the Tars-deficiency-induced angiogenesis.Taken together, this study demonstrates that, despite being closely interconnected and even sharing a common downstream target, the Gcn2-mediated AAR and the Perk-mediated UPR can be activated independently in different conditions and differentially regulate cellular functions such as angiogenesis. This notion reflects the specificity and efficiency of multiple stress response pathways that are evolved integrally to benefit the organism by ensuring sensing and responding precisely to different types of stresses. This study also provides an example of combining systematic gene expression profiling and phenotypic validations to distinguish activities of such interconnected pathways. Further clarification of the mechanisms shall advance our understanding of how the organisms respond to diverse stresses and how the abnormalities in these regulatory machineries cause cellular stress-related diseases such as cancer, diabetes and immune disorders. DisclosuresNo relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Abstract 4658: Activation mechanisms of Integrated Stress Response by inhibition of oncogenic BRAF in melanoma cell lines

Abstract The eIF2α-ATF4 signaling pathway termed “Integrated stress response (ISR)” plays an important role in protecting cells against various cellular stresses such as deprivation of glucose and amino acids, virus infection, and deficiency of heme. Under such stress conditions, eIF2α kinases, including PERK, GCN2, PKR and HRI, phosphorylate eIF2α, resulting in reduction of general protein synthesis while facilitating selective translation of ATF4, a central transcription factor that upregulates expression of stress-induced genes for cellular adaptation. Recently, it was reported that BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib triggers activation of the eIF2α-ATF4 signaling in BRAF-mutant melanoma cell lines; however, activation mechanisms of vemurafenib-induced ISR signaling not fully understood. In this study, we first compared vemurafenib-induced ISR activation in BRAF-mutant and -wild type melanoma cell lines. Consistent with previous studies, vemurafenib activated ISR signaling preferentially in BRAF-mutant cell lines, as determined by phosphorylation of eIF2α and ATF4 expression. We also found that the ISR activation by vemurafenib was impaired by knockdown of BRAF in BRAF-mutant cell lines. These results indicated that existence of mutated BRAF is important for vemurafenib to trigger activation of ISR signaling pathway. We next examined which eIF2α kinase is involved in the ISR signaling activation by vemurafenib. We found that knockdown of GCN2, an eIF2α kinase sensing depletion of amino acids, impaired phosphorylation of eIF2α and ATF4 induction by vemurafenib. In addition, we confirmed that vemurafenib induced phosphorylation of GCN2 on Thr899 that is known to occur in response to amino acids starvation. In agreement with these results, gene expression profiling with ontology analysis revealed that vemurafenib upregulated genes that are involved in amino acids biosynthesis via ISR signaling. Collectively, our results suggested that vemurafenib activated ISR signaling pathway possibly through mimicking amino acid deprivation in BRAF-mutant melanoma cell lines. Citation Format: Ikuko Nagasawa, Satomi Tsukahara, Kazuhiro Kunimasa, Akihiro Tomida. Activation mechanisms of Integrated Stress Response by inhibition of oncogenic BRAF in melanoma cell lines. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 4658.

Hypothalamic eIF2α Signaling Regulates Food Intake

The reversible phosphorylation of the α subunit of eukaryotic initiation factor 2 (eIF2α) is a highly conserved signal implicated in the cellular adaptation to numerous stresses such as the one caused by amino acid limitation. In response to dietary amino acid deficiency, the brain-specific activation of the eIF2α kinase GCN2 leads to food intake inhibition. We report here that GCN2 is rapidly activated in the mediobasal hypothalamus (MBH) after consumption of a leucine-deficient diet. Furthermore, knockdown of GCN2 in this particular area shows that MBH GCN2 activity controls the onset of the aversive response. Importantly, pharmacological experiments demonstrate that the sole phosphorylation of eIF2α in the MBH is sufficient to regulate food intake. eIF2α signaling being at the crossroad of stress pathways activated in several pathological states, our study indicates that hypothalamic eIF2α phosphorylation could play a critical role in the onset of anorexia associated with certain diseases.

Amino Acid Deprivation Promotes Tumor Angiogenesis through the GCN2/ATF4 Pathway

As tumors continue to grow and exceed their blood supply, nutrients become limited leading to deficiencies in amino acids (AAD), glucose (GD), and oxygen (hypoxia). These alterations result in significant changes in gene expression. While tumors have been shown to overcome the stress associated with GD or hypoxia by stimulating vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-mediated angiogenesis, the role of AAD in tumor angiogenesis remains to be elucidated. We found that in human tumors, the expression of the general control non-derepressible 2 (GCN2, an AAD sensor) kinase is elevated at both protein and mRNA levels. In vitro studies revealed that VEGF expression is universally induced by AAD treatment in all five cell lines tested (five of five). This is in contrast to two other angiogenesis mediators interleukin-6 (two of five) and fibroblast growth factor 2 (two of five) that have a more restricted expression. Suppressing GCN2 expression significantly decreased AAD-induced VEGF expression. Silencing activating transcription factor 4 (ATF4), a downstream transcription factor of the GCN2 signaling pathway, is also associated with strong inhibition of AAD-induced VEGF expression. PKR-like kinase, the key player in GD-induced unfolded protein response is not involved in this process. In vivo xenograft tumor studies in nonobese diabetic/severe combined immunodeficient mice confirmed that knockdown of GCN2 in tumor cells retards tumor growth and decreases tumor blood vessel density. Our results reveal that the GCN2/ATF4 pathway promotes tumor growth and angiogenesis through AAD-mediated VEGF expression and, thus, is a potential target in cancer therapy.

Abstract 1394: Sublethal Levels of Aldehydes Augmented Cardiac Anti-Oxidant Defense through Activation of eIF2 α -ATF4 Pathway via GCN2 Kinase

[Introduction] Despite an increase in the levels of aldehydes, the heart from aldehyde dehydrogenase ( ALDH ) 2*2 -transgenic (Tg) mice, loss of function model of ALDH, exhibited a greater tolerance to oxidative stress via activation of amino acid metabolism leading to glutathione biosynthesis. This study was designed to identify the signaling cascades responsible for the activation of amino acid metabolism by aldehydes. [Methods & Results] (1) Phosphorylation of α -subunit of eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2 (eIF2 α ) and subsequent translational activation of ATF4 have been shown to induce amino acid metabolism as a common response to a wide variety of stressors. Consistent with this, phosphorylation levels of eIF2 α and protein expression of ATF4 were increased in ALDH2*2 -Tg hearts. (2) Among four eIF2 α kinases, general control non-depressible (GCN)2 kinase, a sensor for amino acid insufficiency, was activated in ALDH2*2 -Tg heart. (3) Quantification of intracellular amino acid demonstrated that free histidine concentration in ALDH2*2 -Tg heart was selectively reduced by 50% compared to that in non-Tg littermates. (4) To clarify the functional significance of observed reduction in histidine, ALDH2*2 -Tg mice were fed a high histidine diet. The phosphorylation levels of eIF2 α and the protein levels of ATF4 were diminished by 50% in ALDH2*2 -Tg mice fed the high histidine diet, in agreement with the normalization of histidine concentration. Accordingly, both enhanced tolerance to ischemia-reperfusion injury and elevated levels of glutathione were partially diminished in the heart from ALDH2*2 -Tg mice fed the high histidine diet compared to ALDH2*2 -Tg mice fed normal chow. (5) In culture, exposure to 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal (4-HNE) phosphorylated GCN2 and eIF2 α and increased protein levels of ATF4 in a time-dependent manner. (6) siRNA-mediated knockdown of GCN2 abrogated 4-HNE-induced induction of amino acid metabolic genes. [Conclusions] Activation of eIF2 α -ATF4 pathway via GCN2 kinase might be of special importance in the transcriptional control that coordinately promotes amino acid metabolism in response to aldehydes. Intracellular depletion of free histidine is at least partly involved in the activation of GCN2 kinase by aldehydes.