Proteomic Dissection of Cell Type-Specific H2AX-Interacting Protein Complex Associated with Hepatocellular Carcinoma

The replacement histone variant H2AX senses DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) and recruits characteristic sets of proteins at its phosphorylated (γ-H2AX) foci for concurrent DNA repair. We reasoned that the H2AX interaction network, or interactome formed in the tumor-associated DNA DSB environment such as in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells, where pre-neoplastic lesions frequently occur, is indicative of HCC pathogenic status. By using an in vivo dual-tagging quantitative proteomic method, we identified 102 H2AX-specific interacting partners in HCC cells that stably expressed FLAG-tagged H2AX at close to the endogenous level. Using bioinformatics tools for data-dependent network analysis, we further found binary relationships among these interactors in defined pathway modules, implicating H2AX in a multi-functional role of coordinating a variety of biological pathways involved in DNA damage recognition and DNA repair, apoptosis, nucleic acid metabolism, Ca2+-binding signaling, cell cycle, etc. Furthermore our observations suggest that these pathways interconnect through key pathway components or H2AX interactors. The physiological accuracy of our quantitative proteomic approach in determining H2AX-specific interactors was evaluated by both co-immunoprecipitation/ immunoblotting and confocal co-localization experiments performed on HCC cells. Due to their involvement in diverse functions, the H2AX interactors involved in different pathway modules, such as Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase1, 14-3-3ζ, coflin1, and peflin1, were examined for their relative H2AX binding affinities in paired hepatocytes and HCC cells. Treatment with the DSB-inducing agent bleomycin enhanced binding of these proteins to H2AX, suggesting an active role of H2AX in coordinating the functional pathways of each protein in DNA damage recognition and repair

Protein Phosphatase 2A Catalytic Subunit α Plays a MyD88-Dependent, Central Role in the Gene-Specific Regulation of Endotoxin Tolerance

MyD88, the intracellular adaptor of most TLRs, mediates either proinflammatory or immunosuppressive signaling that contributes to chronic inflammation-associated diseases. Although gene-specific chromatin modifications regulate inflammation, the role of MyD88 signaling in establishing such epigenetic landscapes under different inflammatory states remains elusive. Using quantitative proteomics to enumerate the inflammation-phenotypic constituents of the MyD88 interactome, we found that in endotoxin-tolerant macrophages, protein phosphatase 2A catalytic subunit α (PP2Ac) enhances its association with MyD88 and is constitutively activated. Knockdown of PP2Ac prevents suppression of proinflammatory genes and resistance to apoptosis. Through site-specific dephosphorylation, constitutively active PP2Ac disrupts the signal-promoting TLR4-MyD88 complex and broadly suppresses the activities of multiple proinflammatory/proapoptotic pathways as well, shifting proinflammatory MyD88 signaling to a prosurvival mode. Constitutively active PP2Ac translocated with MyD88 into the nuclei of tolerant macrophages establishes the immunosuppressive pattern of chromatin modifications and represses chromatin remodeling to selectively silence proinflammatory genes, coordinating the MyD88-dependent inflammation control at both signaling and epigenetic levels under endotoxin-tolerant conditions