A Significant Soluble Keratin Fraction In
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Journal of Cell Science 105, 433-444 (1993) 433 Printed in Great Britain © The Company of Biologists Limited 1993 A significant soluble keratin fraction in ‘simple’ epithelial cells Lack of an apparent phosphorylation and glycosylation role in keratin solubility Chih-Fong Chou*, Carrie L. Riopel, Lusijah S. Rott and M. Bishr Omary† Palo Alto Veterans Administration Medical Center and the Digestive Disease Center at Stanford University, School of Medicine, 3801 Miranda Avenue, GI 111, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA *Author for reprint requests †Author for correspondence SUMMARY We studied the solubility of keratin polypeptides 8 and aments in vitro as determined by electron microscopy. 18 (K8/18), which are the predominant intermediate fil- Cross-linking of soluble K8/18 followed by immunopre- aments in the human colonic epithelial cell line HT29. cipitation resulted in dimeric and tetrameric forms, We find that asynchronously growing cells (G0/G1 stage based on migration in SDS-polyacrylamide gels. In of the cell cycle) have a substantial pool of soluble ker- addition, cross-linked and native soluble K8/18 showed atin that constitutes approx. 5% of total cellular ker- similar migration on nondenaturing gels and similar atin. This soluble keratin pool was observed after sedimentation after sucrose density gradient centrifu- immunoprecipitation of K8/18 from the cytosolic frac- gation. Our results indicate that simple epithelial ker- tion of cells disrupted using three detergent-free meth- atins are appreciably more soluble than previously rec- ods. Several other cell lines showed a similar significant ognized. The soluble keratin form is assembly competent soluble cytosolic K8/18 pool. Arrest of HT29 cells in and appears to be primarily tetrameric. Although K8/18 G2/M stage of the cell cycle was associated with a con- solubility was found to increase during mitotic arrest, current increase in keratin solubility. Comparison of glycosylation and phosphorylation did not play an obvi- K8/18 obtained from the soluble cytosolic fraction and ous role in generating the soluble fraction, suggesting the insoluble high-speed pellet fraction showed similar an alternate mechanism for keratin solubility. levels of phosphorylation and glycosylation and similar tryptic radiolabeled phospho- and glycopeptide pat- Key words: keratin glycosylation, keratin phosphorylation, keratin terns. Soluble K8/18 can form characteristic 10 nm fil- solubility INTRODUCTION for a number of IF. For example, newly synthesized vimentin was detected in a precursor soluble pool with sub- Intermediate filaments (IF) represent one of the three major sequent incorporation into filaments (Blikstad and classes of cytoskeletal proteins that are present in most Lazarides, 1983). The soluble pool may also include pre- eukaryotic cells (Steinert and Roop, 1988). Of the three existing older molecules in addition to newly synthesized major cytoskeletal proteins, IF are felt to be the least sol- vimentin, as determined by pulse-chase labeling experi- uble; and within IF, keratins are considered insoluble in ments (Söellner et al., 1985). These observations suggested aqueous salt solutions (Steinert et al., 1982; Bershadsky and an exchange between the soluble and insoluble IF fractions, Vasiliev, 1988; Lazarides, 1982). In fact, a generally uti- which was supported by the observation that post-transla- lized method for keratin isolation makes use of their insol- tional generation of vimentin filaments from a soluble pool ubility in high-salt buffer systems (Achtstaetter et al., 1986). may occur with or without cotranslational filament forma- Also, complete solubilization of keratins generally requires tion, depending on the tissue source (Isaacs et al., 1989). a high concentration of urea, although different keratin pairs Similarly, cytosolic fractions from rat livers contained a exhibit different solubility in urea. For example, keratin keratin-like pool based on its filament-forming ability and polypeptides 5 and 14 (K5/14, nomenclature and numeri- partial peptide mapping analysis (Sahyoun et al., 1982). cal classification are based on that of Moll et al., 1982), Neurofilaments also appeared to be formed from soluble which are expressed in basal epidermal cells, can be solu- precursors that can be chased with time into the cytoskele- bilized in 2 M urea; whereas K1 and K10/11 (expressed in tal fraction (Black et al., 1986). In most cases, the soluble suprabasal cells) required 4-6 M urea (Eichner and Kahn, IF pool was not quantitated but was implied to be ‘small’. 1990). For example, a small soluble K8 and K18 pool was iden- The presence of a ‘small’ soluble pool has been shown tified in the human hepatocellular cell line PLC (Franke et 434 C.-F. Chou and others al., 1987). In addition, using immunoblot analysis, Xeno - or Eagle’s MEM supplemented with 10% fetal calf serum. Arrest pus laevis oocytes and eggs were estimated to contain 1 to of cells in G2/M using colcemid (0.5 mg/ml) and cell cycle analy- 10% of their total keratin in a soluble form (Gall and sis was carried out exactly as described (Chou and Omary, 1993). Karsenti, 1987). When quantitated, soluble vimentin was Monoclonal antibodies to K8/18 used were: L2A1 coupled to ® estimated to be less than 0.4% of total vimentin as deter- Sepharose beads (Chou et al., 1992), or to Affinica agarose beads mined by pulse labeling with [35S]methionine for 30 min as per manufacturer’s recommendation (Schleicher & Schuell, Keene, NH); and CK5 (Sigma). Other reagents used were UDP- then chasing for up to 15 h (Söellner et al., 1985). Fur- [4,5-3H]galactose (34.6 Ci/mmol), N-[6-3H]glucosamine-HCl 32 35 thermore, for some IF (e.g. neurofilaments), solubility (40.4 Ci/mmol), orthophosphate ( PO4), [ S]protein-labeling appears to be tissue dependent. For example, mice injected mix (1186 Ci/mmol), liquid and spray ENHANCE® (Du Pont- intravitreally with [35S]methionine showed a substantial New England Nuclear); catalase (Worthington Biochemical Corp., soluble pool of retinal but not optic axon neurofilament-L Freehold, NJ); human immunoglobulin G (IgG), galactosyltrans- (Nixon et al., 1989). ferase, bovine serum albumin (BSA), goat anti-mouse IgG- The factors involved in generating a soluble IF pool are Sepharose conjugate (Sigma); peroxidase-labeled goat anti-mouse not known. On the basis of in vitro studies of IF assembly, Ig (Kirkegaard & Perry Laboratories, Inc., Gaithersburg, MD); and the polar nature of the phosphate group, phosphoryla- electron microscopy (EM) grids (Ted Pella Inc., Redding, CA); tion is an attractive potential regulator of IF solubility. For disuccinimidyl suberate (DSS) crosslinking agent (Pierce, Rock- ford, IL). example, in vitro phosphorylation of filamentous vimentin (Inagaki et al., 1987; Chou et al., 1989), rat liver K8/18 Preparation of supernatant (S), pellet (P) and high- (Yano et al., 1991), desmin (Inagaki et al., 1988) and neu- salt extract (HSE) fractions rofilaments (Gonda et al., 1990) resulted in filament disas- sembly as determined by negative staining electron Cells grown asynchronously (primarily G0/G1 cells (G cells)) or arrested in G2/M (M cells) were washed twice with phosphate microscopy. However, analysis of the soluble vimentin buffered saline (PBS), then suspended in 1.5 ml of PBS, buffer fraction (Blikstad and Lazarides, 1983; Isaacs et al., 1989; A (50 mM Tris-HCl, pH 7.5, 5 mM MgCl2, 25 mM KCl), or Söellner et al., 1985; Lamb et al., 1989), the soluble ker- buffer B (10 mM Tris-HCl, pH 7.5, 1 mM MgCl2, 130 mM KCl, atin fraction (Gall and Karsenti, 1987) or soluble neurofil- 5 mM EDTA, 5 mM NaCl). All buffers and detergent solutions aments (Black et al., 1986; Nixon et al., 1989) indicated also contained 0.1 mM phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride (added that phosphorylation does not appear to play a role in gen- fresh), 25 mg/ml aprotinin, 10 mM leupeptin and 10 mM pepstatin. erating the soluble or insoluble fractions. To generate the S and P fractions, cells were disrupted in buffer Recently we showed that K8/18 in HT29 cells undergo A, B or PBS (1.5 ml) using a cell disruption bomb (no. 4639, Parr 2 a dynamic O-linked glycosylation, with multiple glycosy- Instrument Company, Maline, IL) at 1000 lbf/in for 5 min, fol- lation sites consisting of single N-acetylglucosamine lowed by ultracentrifugation (300,000 g; 90 min, 4°C, SW50.1 rotor). Alternatively, cells were disrupted in buffer B using a (GlcNAc) residues (Chou et al., 1992). The dynamic nature Dounce homogenizer (100 strokes) or by freeze-thawing three of this modification was reflected by the faster rate of K8/18 times (- 80°C, 5 min, followed by rapid thawing in a 37°C water carbohydrate biosynthesis and degradation, when compared bath) followed by ultracentrifugation. with the corresponding rates for the protein backbone (Chou High-salt extraction was performed in a manner similar to that et al., 1992). Mitotic arrest of HT29 cells, using colcemid described before (Achtstaetter et al., 1986). Briefly, HT29 cells or nocodazole, resulted in a dramatic increase in both gly- (one confluent 100 mm dish) or the P fraction obtained after bomb- cosylation and phosphorylation of K8/18 (Chou and Omary, ing and then ultracentrifugation were mixed with 1 ml of 1% 1993). Threonine was a major site of glycosylation, whereas Triton X-100 (TX-100) 5 mM EDTA in PBS for 2 min (4°C) fol- serine was the primary site of phosphorylation (Chou and lowed by centrifugation (16,000 g, 10 min). The supernatant was Omary, 1993). Here we quantitate the soluble K8/18 frac- removed and used for immunoprecipitation or discarded. The pellet was homogenized in a high-salt buffer (1 ml) containing 10 tion and ask what happens to K8/18 solubility in mitotic mM Tris-HCl (pH 7.6), 140 mM NaCl, 1.5 M KCl, 5 mM EDTA, arrest, and what role does phosphorylation and glycosyla- 0.5% TX-100, followed by a 30 min incubation and then pellet- tion play in generating the soluble fraction.