Tumor Susceptibility Gene-101 Regulates Glucocorticoid Receptor Through Disorder-Mediated Allostery
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bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.02.931485; this version posted February 3, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. Tumor susceptibility gene-101 regulates glucocorticoid receptor through disorder-mediated allostery Jordan T. White1, James Rives2, Marla E. Tharp1, James O. Wrabl1, E. Brad Thompson1,3, Vincent J. Hilser*1,4 1Department of Biology at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218; 2Department of Chemistry at Johns Hopkins University; 3Sealy Center for Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Univ. of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX; 4T. C. Jenkins Department of Biophysics at Johns Hopkins University Running title: TSG101 allosterically regulates GR *To whom correspondence should be addressed: Vincent Hilser: Department of Biology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD 21218; [email protected]; Tel.(410)-516-6072 Keywords: glucocorticoid receptor, tumor susceptibility gene-101, allostery, allosteric regulation, transcription, transcription coregulator, transcription regulation, thermodynamics, biophysics Abstract Introduction Tumor Susceptibility Gene-101 (TSG101) is Transcription factors (TFs) are multi- involved in endosomal maturation and has been domain, allosteric proteins, in which the binding implicated in the transcriptional regulation of of one effector ligand to its specific domain causes several steroid hormone receptors (SHRs), a conformational change in one or more other although a detailed characterization of such domains, so as to alter transcription. Most TFs regulation has yet to be conducted. Here we contain intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs), directly measure binding of TSG101 to one SHR, which though critical for TF function, are still not glucocorticoid receptor (GR). Using biophysical well understood (1). Generally, TF IDRs consist and cellular assays, we show that the coiled-coil of large ensembles of rapidly interconverting domain of TSG101; 1) binds and folds the conformers, including in many cases, conformers disordered N-terminal domain (NTD) of GR, 2) that contain some degree of structure. By upon binding, improves DNA-binding of GR in definition then, allostery arises due to an effector- vitro, and 3) enhances the transcriptional activity driven shift in the distribution of states such that of GR in vivo. Our findings suggest that TSG101 states that are capable of initiating transcription is a bona fide transcriptional co-regulator of GR. are either promoted or repressed, thus affecting transcriptional activity accordingly (2,3). We have adopted the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) as a model system for our studies because the NTD of GR is known to be intrinsically disordered (ID) 1 bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.02.931485; this version posted February 3, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. TSG101 allosterically regulates GR and also to be critical for the TF function of the which adopts the canonical zinc-finger binding receptor. motif (17,18). Conversely, we showed that The GR is a 3-domain protein comprised although the NTD of GR appears in its entirety to of (from N to C terminus): N-terminal (NTD), be an IDR, it actually consists of two adjacent, but DNA-binding (DBD), and ligand-binding domains functionally distinct IDRs. The first IDR, which (LBD), where L in this case refers to steroid or we call the functional (or F-domain) includes steroid substitute. However, if the LBD is deleted, residues 99-420. We showed that the F-domain the 2-domain NTD-DBD is constitutively active exists as an equilibrium between a disordered (or due to a potent activation function-1 (AF1) region unfolded) state and a folded ordered state, and that located in its NTD, a fact that makes the GR NTD- the folded state of the F-domain is responsible for DBD amenable to exploring the allosteric impact transcriptional activation. of DNA binding on transcriptional activation, as The second functionally distinct IDR of well as the effects of changes to the NTD on DNA the NTD consists of residues 1-98 (Fig. 1A), and binding (Fig. 1A). We and others have shown that this region serves as a variable-length regulator (or the ID NTD can be made to cooperatively fold R-domain). The R-domain influences both the F- into conformers containing both 2º and 3º domain of the NTD as well as the DBD, providing structure, by use of; 1) protective organic GR with genetically “tunable” energetic osmolytes (4-7), 2) known binding partner frustration (13), whereby DNA binding to the proteins (8-10), 3) phosphorylation of key serines DBD both directly stabilizes (and thus activates) (11,12), and 4) addition of the DBD (13,14). the F-domain, but also indirectly destabilizes Previously, we hypothesized, using a (therefore, repressing) the F-domain through rigorous thermodynamic model, that under a wide stabilization of the R-domain. Thus, our results range of initial energetic conditions, inclusion of revealed that all the GR NTD-DBD isoforms that an IDR in a protein could enhance its allosteric contain the AF1 region (e.g., A, B1, B3 C1, and behavior (15). Specifically, in a 2-domain model C2), with the exception of the C3 isoform, actually in which each domain is capable of binding its consist of three domains; the DBD, the F-domain, own specific ligand, when one or both domains is and variable lengths of the R-domain. Because the ID, binding of ligand to one domain can greatly GR C3 is the only isoform lacking the R-domain influence the probability of the second domain (19), it represents an ideal system to interrogate being in a favorable folded state for binding its the direct impact of changes to the NTD on the ligand. Further, we showed this ensemble DBD, as the absence of any R-domain should allosteric model (EAM) could be applied to greatly simplify interpretation. proteins with multiple domains, allowing us to As a transcriptional cofactor for these probe the role of ID in mediating allosteric control studies we selected the Tumor Susceptibility Gene in numerous domain topologies (16). Indeed, in 101 (TSG101), a protein that is primarily known validating this model, we demonstrated that DNA for its role in the ESCRT-I complex (i.e., binding affinity and transcriptional activity for a Endosomal Sorting Complex Required for series of isoforms of GR could be described in the Transport-I), promoting endosomal maturation context of inter-domain coupling in the GR (13), (19,20). However, it has also been reported to thus, establishing one tenet of the EAM, that bind to the GR, and to possibly act as a cofactor stabilization of an input domain (i.e. the DBD) for GR and other TF’s (Table S1 and (21-25)). The could affect the function of the activation domain. domains of TSG101 that are critical to these Here, we set out to test the reciprocal interactions are shown in Figure 1B. Herein, we prediction of the model; that binding a investigate the binding of TSG101 to GR and the transcriptional cofactor ligand to the NTD could ability of this binding to allosterically affect GR either positively or negatively (depending on the DBD binding to its canonical palindromic DNA sign of the coupling) tune the affinity of the DBD. binding site (i.e., the GR response element To address this question, we utilized the 2-domain (GRE)), as well as influence subsequent GR system described above (13). Importantly, transcriptional activity. within this construct, the DBD is known to be a structured, albeit highly dynamic, globular protein, Results 2 bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.02.931485; this version posted February 3, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. TSG101 allosterically regulates GR TSG101 binds within the GR NTD Activation (i.e.~120-200) and following (i.e.~240-300) Function-1 (AF1) region residues in the AF1 core. Interestingly, the It has been reported previously that the orientation of the cross-links is suggestive of an coiled-coil region of TSG101 (TSG101cc) binds to inversion in the register of the interaction, the AF1 region of the GR NTD (23). Here we set whereby the GR NTD is aligned parallel with out to establish whether this binding is specific TSG101cc but then doubles back on TSG101cc, and whether it affects the functional coupling we aligning in antiparallel (Fig. 4 inset). Importantly, previously revealed in GR (13). Importantly, we these results are consistent with a model whereby confirmed previous results and extended our the TSG101cc—which is known to form a understanding using quantitative binding studies heterotrimeric coiled-coil in its functional ESCRT and protease protection assays. First, we complex (27)—interacts with the GR NTD in the examined the binding of TSG101cc to the single- two regions before and after the AF1 core residues domain GR C3 NTD and to the two-domain GR (5), thus mimicking the trimeric coiled-coil seen in C3 NTD-DBD (Fig. 2). Our results reveal that the ESCRT complex. We note that this proposed TSG101cc binds to the two constructs with 1:1 interaction model is also consistent with our stoichiometry, with TSG101cc binding more structural thermodynamic analysis of GR using the tightly to the isolated C3 NTD (Kd = 19.6 ± 1.0 COREX algorithm, whereby the two regions of the µM, see Table 1) than to the two-domain C3 GR NTD that interact with TSG101cc are NTD-DBD (Kd = 72.6 ± 14.6 µM).