Posttranslational histone modifications play important roles in regulating chromatin structure and function. One example of histone modification is ubiquitination, which occurs predominately on H2A and H2B. Although recent studies have revealed a critical role of H2A ubiquitination in Hox gene silencing and X inactivation, the function of H2A deubiquitination is unknown and the enzymes that catalyze H2A deubiquitination have not been identified. In the preliminary results presented in this proposal, we identified Ubp-M as the deubiquitinase for histone H2A. Further characterization revealed that Ubp-M-mediated H2A deubiquitination plays important roles in cell cycle progression and gene expression. In this proposal we propose to thoroughly characterize Ubp-M, with the long-range goal of determining the roles and elucidating the mechanisms of Ubp-M and its mediated H2A deubiquitination in chromatin and cellular regulation. Our hypothesis is that Ubp-M regulates cell cycle progression and gene expression, in part, through H2A deubiquitination. To address this hypothesis, we have established three Specific Aims to: 1. Characterize the functional domains of Ubp-M by defining regions in Ubp-M that are necessary for its nucleosomal- and H2A-specific deubiquitination in vitro and in vivo as well as for its normal subcellular localization. 2. Determine the role of phosphorylation in regulating Ubp-M's function by mapping the phosphorylation sites and investigating how mutations of these sites regulate Ubp-M's function in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, the roles of phosphorylation in regulating Ubp-M's nuclear localization signal (NLS) and nuclear export signal (NES) will be investigated. 3. Identify and characterize Ubp-M interacting proteins by first confirming their interactions with Ubp-M and mapping the sites of protein-protein interaction, and then determining how these interacting proteins regulate Ubp-M's cellular functions in vitro and in vivo. In addition to these three Specific Aims, we outline plans to generate Ubp-M complete and conditional knockout mice and describe our experimental progress. Our preliminary studies indicate that Ubp-M regulates early embryogenesis in Xenopus laevis and is highly expressed in ovarian and breast cancer cells, underscoring the importance to determine the function of Ubp-M in vivo. However, due to the amount of work in this application and the uncertain outcome of these experiments, we did not list these experiments as a Specific Aim.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01GM081489-05
Application #
8258277
Study Section
Molecular Genetics B Study Section (MGB)
Program Officer
Carter, Anthony D
Project Start
2008-05-01
Project End
2014-04-30
Budget Start
2012-05-01
Budget End
2014-04-30
Support Year
5
Fiscal Year
2012
Total Cost
$262,201
Indirect Cost
$81,373
Name
University of Alabama Birmingham
Department
Biochemistry
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
063690705
City
Birmingham
State
AL
Country
United States
Zip Code
35294
Vassylyeva, Marina N; Klyuyev, Sergiy; Vassylyev, Alexey D et al. (2017) Efficient, ultra-high-affinity chromatography in a one-step purification of complex proteins. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 114:E5138-E5147
Gu, Yue; Jones, Amanda E; Yang, Wei et al. (2016) The histone H2A deubiquitinase Usp16 regulates hematopoiesis and hematopoietic stem cell function. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 113:E51-60
Tien, Chih-Liang; Jones, Amanda; Wang, Hengbin et al. (2015) Snail2/Slug cooperates with Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) to regulate neural crest development. Development 142:722-31
Joo, Heui-Yun; Dai, Qian; Jones, Amanda E et al. (2015) In vitro and in vivo assays for studying histone ubiquitination and deubiquitination. Methods Mol Biol 1288:213-30
Zhang, Mu; Xiang, Shengyan; Joo, Heui-Yun et al. (2014) HDAC6 deacetylates and ubiquitinates MSH2 to maintain proper levels of MutS?. Mol Cell 55:31-46
Yang, Wei; Lee, Yun-Hwa; Jones, Amanda E et al. (2014) The histone H2A deubiquitinase Usp16 regulates embryonic stem cell gene expression and lineage commitment. Nat Commun 5:3818
Zhang, Zhuo; Yang, Huirong; Wang, Hengbin (2014) The histone H2A deubiquitinase USP16 interacts with HERC2 and fine-tunes cellular response to DNA damage. J Biol Chem 289:32883-94
Zhang, Zhuo; Jones, Amanda; Joo, Heui-Yun et al. (2013) USP49 deubiquitinates histone H2B and regulates cotranscriptional pre-mRNA splicing. Genes Dev 27:1581-95
Xu, Yang; Yang, Huirong; Joo, Heui-Yun et al. (2013) Ubp-M serine 552 phosphorylation by cyclin-dependent kinase 1 regulates cell cycle progression. Cell Cycle 12:3219-27
Jones, Amanda; Joo, Heui-Yun; Robbins, Woody et al. (2011) Purification of histone ubiquitin ligases from HeLa cells. Methods 54:315-25

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