Deregulation of Protein Ubiquitination by HPV E6 Proteins
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Deregulation of protein ubiquitination by HPV E6 proteins Doctoral thesis for obtaining the academic degree Doctor of Natural Sciences (Dr.rer.nat.) submitted by Felix Ebner at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences Department of Biology Konstanz, 2019 Konstanzer Online-Publikations-System (KOPS) URL: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:352-2-16o1byax6gd3j7 Date of the oral examination: 10.07.2019 First referee: Prof. Dr. Martin Scheffner Second referee: Prof. Dr. Florian Stengel Table of contents Table of contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................ v Zusammenfassung ........................................................................................................... vii 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Human papillomaviruses ............................................................................................. 1 1.2 The viral life cycle ........................................................................................................ 3 1.3 HPV genome ................................................................................................................ 4 1.3.1 HPV E1 and E2 ...................................................................................................... 5 1.3.2 HPV E4 .................................................................................................................. 7 1.3.3 HPV E5 .................................................................................................................. 7 1.3.4 HPV E6 and E7 oncoproteins ................................................................................ 8 1.3.4.1 HPV E7 ........................................................................................................... 9 1.3.4.2 HPV E6 ......................................................................................................... 10 1.3.5 HPV vaccination .................................................................................................. 14 1.4 The ubiquitin-proteasome system ............................................................................ 15 1.4.1 The ubiquitination cascade ................................................................................ 15 1.4.2 Ubiquitin modifications ...................................................................................... 17 1.4.3 Proteasome-mediated protein degradation ...................................................... 19 1.5 The HECT ligase E6AP ................................................................................................ 20 2 Aims ........................................................................................................................ 23 3 Materials & Methods ............................................................................................... 25 3.1 Materials .................................................................................................................... 25 3.1.1 Bacterial strains and culture media ................................................................... 25 3.1.2 Cell lines and cell culture .................................................................................... 25 3.1.3 Plasmids .............................................................................................................. 26 3.1.4 Oligonucleotides ................................................................................................. 27 3.1.5 Antibodies .......................................................................................................... 28 3.1.6 DNA and protein markers................................................................................... 28 3.1.7 Chemicals ........................................................................................................... 29 3.1.8 Frequently used buffers ..................................................................................... 30 3.1.9 Software ............................................................................................................. 31 3.2 Methods ..................................................................................................................... 32 i Table of contents 3.2.1 Molecular biology ............................................................................................... 32 3.2.1.1 Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and site directed mutagenesis .............. 32 3.2.1.2 Restriction digest and vector dephosphorylation ...................................... 32 3.2.1.3 Measuring DNA concentrations .................................................................. 32 3.2.1.4 Agarose gel electrophoresis and extraction of DNA from agarose gels ..... 33 3.2.1.5 Ligation ........................................................................................................ 33 3.2.1.6 Gibson Assembly ......................................................................................... 33 3.2.1.7 Transformation of E. coli ............................................................................. 33 3.2.1.8 Mini preparation of plasmid DNA ............................................................... 34 3.2.1.9 Midi preparation of plasmid DNA ............................................................... 34 3.2.1.10 DNA sequencing .......................................................................................... 35 3.2.2 Protein biochemistry .......................................................................................... 35 3.2.2.1 Expression of recombinant proteins and generation of bacterial lysate ... 35 3.2.2.2 Purification of GST-tagged proteins ............................................................ 35 3.2.2.3 Purification of His-tagged proteins ............................................................. 36 3.2.2.4 Purification of bacterially expressed ubiquitin ........................................... 36 3.2.2.5 Biotinylation of ubiquitin ............................................................................ 37 3.2.2.6 MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry .................................................................. 38 3.2.2.7 Protein concentration determination (BCA method) ................................. 39 3.2.2.8 Preparation and detection of in vitro-translated proteins ......................... 39 3.2.2.9 GST co-precipitation assays ........................................................................ 39 3.2.2.10 In vitro ubiquitination assays ...................................................................... 40 3.2.2.11 Sodium dodecyl sulfate – poly acrylamide gel electrophoresis ................. 40 3.2.2.12 Coomassie Blue and colloidal Coomassie staining ..................................... 40 3.2.2.13 Western blotting and immunodetection .................................................... 41 3.2.3 Cell biology ......................................................................................................... 41 3.2.3.1 Preservation and cultivation of mammalian cells....................................... 41 3.2.3.2 Transient transfection experiments............................................................ 42 3.2.3.3 Lysate preparation from human cells ......................................................... 42 3.2.3.4 Determination of β-Gal activities in whole cell extracts ............................. 42 3.2.3.5 Fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) ................................................. 43 3.2.4 Workflow for isolation of proteins modified with biotinylated ubiquitin ......... 43 3.2.4.1 In vitro ubiquitination assay with cell extracts ........................................... 43 3.2.4.2 Streptavidin affinity purification ................................................................. 44 3.2.4.3 In-gel trypsin digestion and peptide extraction .......................................... 44 ii Table of contents 3.2.4.4 LC-MS/MS ................................................................................................... 45 3.2.4.5 Mass spectrometry data analysis................................................................ 45 3.2.5 Statistics and data representation ..................................................................... 46 4 Results ..................................................................................................................... 47 4.1 Establishing a workflow for identification of the E6 ubiquitome .............................. 47 4.1.1 Generation and functional analysis of bioubiquitin ............................................ 48 4.1.2 Alternative strategy for ubiquitination assay using ubiquitin mutants ............. 50 4.1.3 Functional analysis of bioubiquitin mutants ........................................................ 53 4.2 Analysis of the HPV E6 ubiquitome ........................................................................... 57 4.3 XRCC4 as potential E6 substrate ................................................................................ 61 4.3.1 XRCC4 is polyubiquitinated in presence of the E6-E6AP complex ..................... 61 4.3.2 Recombinant GST-XRCC4 is modified with ubiquitin by E6-E6AP...................... 63 4.3.3 The E6-E6AP complex induces reduction of XRCC4 levels in cellulo .................. 64 4.3.4 XRCC4 does not detectably bind to GST-E6 proteins ........................................