Faithful transmission of genomic information requires tight spatiotemporal regulation of DNA replication factors. Posttranslational modifications, such as ubiquitylation, constitute a fast and effective mechanism to control such complex protein function. The AAA-ATPase CDC-48 plays an essential role in selective protein degradation triggered by ubiquitylation. While initial studies reported a crucial function of CDC-48 in the regulation of mitotic events, an essential role of the CDC-48/UFD-1/NPL-4 complex in DNA replication has been revealed in Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) recently. Since the mechanistic details of CDC-48 activity remained to be elucidated, the identification of key substrates playing a vital role during DNA duplication is of major interest.
This work describes a regulatory function of CDC-48 in the coordination of licensing and elongation events of DNA replication in C. elegans. In the licensing step of DNA replication, CDT-1 is loaded onto chromatin to subsequently promote the recruitment of relevant replication factors, including CDC-45 and the GINS complex. Throughout the elongation step CDC-45 and the GINS complex move with the replication fork, however, it is largely unknown how their chromatin association is controlled. CDC-48/UFD-1/NPL-4 deficient embryos stabilize the licensing factor CDT-1 exclusively on mitotic chromatin. Furthermore, worm embryos lacking cdc-48, ufd-1, or npl-4, show persistent chromatin association of CDC-45 and the GINS complex. Notably, the protein levels of CDC-45 and the GINS subunits SLD-5 and PSF-3 are not affected by ufd-1 and npl-4 (RNAi), suggesting a non-proteolytic regulation. Down-regulation of CDT-1 suppresses the chromatin association of the GINS complex in embryos disrupted for a functional CDC-48/UFD-1/NPL-4 complex. Hence, CDC-48 is supposed to orchestrate both, CDT-1 degradation and chromatin dissociation of the CDC-45/GINS complex.
In conclusion, this work describes a novel role of the ubiquitin-selective chaperone CDC-48/UFD-1/NPL-4 in the context of chromatin associated processes. Elucidating the key substrates of CDC-48 during DNA replication illustrates a critical function in safeguarding genomic stability by an unexpected principle of target protein regulation
