TSHZ3 and SOX9 Regulate the Timing of Smooth Muscle Cell Differentiation
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TSHZ3 and SOX9 regulate the timing of smooth muscle cell differentiation in the ureter by reducing myocardin activity Elise Martin, Xavier Caubit, Rannar Airik, Christine Vola, Ahmed Fatmi, Andreas Kispert, Laurent Fasano To cite this version: Elise Martin, Xavier Caubit, Rannar Airik, Christine Vola, Ahmed Fatmi, et al.. TSHZ3 and SOX9 regulate the timing of smooth muscle cell differentiation in the ureter by reducing myocardin activity. PLoS ONE, Public Library of Science, 2013, 8 (5), pp.e63721. 10.1371/journal.pone.0063721. hal- 00862094 HAL Id: hal-00862094 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00862094 Submitted on 19 Sep 2018 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution| 4.0 International License TSHZ3 and SOX9 Regulate the Timing of Smooth Muscle Cell Differentiation in the Ureter by Reducing Myocardin Activity Elise Martin1, Xavier Caubit1, Rannar Airik2, Christine Vola1, Ahmed Fatmi1, Andreas Kispert2, Laurent Fasano1* 1 Aix-Marseille Universite´, CNRS, IBDM UMR7288, Marseille, France, 2 Institut fu¨r Molekularbiologie, Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, Hannover, Germany Abstract Smooth muscle cells are of key importance for the proper functioning of different visceral organs including those of the urogenital system. In the mouse ureter, the two transcriptional regulators TSHZ3 and SOX9 are independently required for initiation of smooth muscle differentiation from uncommitted mesenchymal precursor cells. However, it has remained unclear whether TSHZ3 and SOX9 act independently or as part of a larger regulatory network. Here, we set out to characterize the molecular function of TSHZ3 in the differentiation of the ureteric mesenchyme. Using a yeast-two-hybrid screen, we identified SOX9 as an interacting protein. We show that TSHZ3 also binds to the master regulator of the smooth muscle program, MYOCD, and displaces it from the coregulator SRF, thereby disrupting the activation of smooth muscle specific genes. We found that the initiation of the expression of smooth muscle specific genes in MYOCD-positive ureteric mesenchyme coincides with the down regulation of Sox9 expression, identifying SOX9 as a possible negative regulator of smooth muscle cell differentiation. To test this hypothesis, we prolonged the expression of Sox9 in the ureteric mesenchyme in vivo. We found that Sox9 does not affect Myocd expression but significantly reduces the expression of MYOCD/SRF- dependent smooth muscle genes, suggesting that down-regulation of Sox9 is a prerequisite for MYOCD activity. We propose that the dynamic expression of Sox9 and the interaction between TSHZ3, SOX9 and MYOCD provide a mechanism that regulates the pace of progression of the myogenic program in the ureter. Citation: Martin E, Caubit X, Airik R, Vola C, Fatmi A, et al. (2013) TSHZ3 and SOX9 Regulate the Timing of Smooth Muscle Cell Differentiation in the Ureter by Reducing Myocardin Activity. PLoS ONE 8(5): e63721. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0063721 Editor: Qingzhong Xiao, William Harvey Research Institute, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom Received March 26, 2012; Accepted April 11, 2013; Published May 6, 2013 Copyright: ß 2013 Martin et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: Research in the laboratory of LF was supported by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) with additional funding from the Association Franc¸aise contre les Myopathies (AFM, grants 12545, 13013) and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR, grant ANR-09-GENO-027-01). Work in the laboratory of AK was supported by a grant (DFG Ki728/7-1) from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Council). E. Martin was a fellow of the AFM. Part of this work was performed using France-BioImaging infrastructure supported by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-10-INSB-04-01, call ‘‘Investissements d’Avenir’’). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. * E-mail: [email protected] Introduction homeodomain-containing protein SIX1 and the high-mobility- group (HMG) domain transcription factor SOX9 are expressed in Smooth muscle (SM) is a frequent investment of visceral organs, SMC precursors and are important for the cytodifferentiation of and is required to assure their rigidity and contractility. In the ureteric mesenchyme [9,10,11,12]. Phenotypic and molecular urinary tract, SM is present in the renal pelvis, the ureter, the analyses of Tbx18 mutant ureters have indicated that Tbx18 is bladder and the urethra and plays a crucial role in the functional required for specifying mesenchymal cell precursors to a ureteric and structural integrity of these organs. fate [9]. Six1 acts synergistically with Tbx18 in regulating the In vivo characterization of visceral smooth muscle cell (SMC) proliferation and differentiation of SMC precursors [12]. Teashirt development in the ureter has provided evidence for a role for 3(Tshz3) is expressed in precursors, and in differentiating and Sonic hedgehog (SHH) and Bone morphogenetic protein 4 differentiated SMCs; its expression is maintained in adult ureteric (BMP4) signaling in the differentiation of the mesenchymal cells SM. In Tshz3 mutant ureters the myogenic program is not that surround the urothelium [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. Targeted removal activated in the proximal region due to the absence of expression of Shh signal production in the ureteric epithelium resulted in a of myocardin (Myocd), a key regulator of SM differentiation [11,13]. reduction of ureteral mesenchymal cell proliferation and delayed It was suggested that SM differentiation depends on a signaling SM differentiation, which is likely to play a causal role in the axis starting with secreted SHH and ending with ureteric SMC observed hydroureter [8]. Moreover, removal of Shh resulted in a differentiation, with Tszh3 downstream of Bmp4 but upstream of deficit of Bmp4-expressing peri-ureteral mesenchyme, while Myocd and SMC contractile protein synthesis [11,14]. This work conditional deletion of Bmp4 dramatically reduced expression of also provided some indication concerning the temporal control of SM specific genes [1,8]. Four transcription factors, the T-box SMC differentiation. In the wild type ureter, MYOCD and SMC protein TBX18, the zinc-finger protein Teashirt 3 (TSHZ3), the markers are detected at E15.5, shortly before onset of urine PLOS ONE | www.plosone.org 1 May 2013 | Volume 8 | Issue 5 | e63721 Timing the Ureteric Myogenic Program production at E16.0 to E16.5. Tshz32/2 mice as well as other serum and 50 units/ml penicillin, 50 mg/ml streptomycin, 1% mutants with defects in ureteric SM differentiation consequently sodium pyruvate. develop hydroureter at around E16.5 [11]. Recently, it was shown that the high mobility group domain transcription factor gene Sox9 Yeast Two-hybrid Screen (Y2H) plays an important role both in kidney and ureter development in The screen has been previously reported in [20]. the mouse [10,15]. Sox9 is transiently expressed in the undiffer- entiated ureteric mesenchyme. Conditional inactivation of Sox9 in Immunological and in situ hybridization analysis this domain led to a significant down-regulation of Myocd Tissues were fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde/PBS. Immuno- expression and perturbed differentiation into SMC, which resulted staining was performed either on 10 mm cryosections of tissues or in strong proximal hydroureter formation due to functional on paraffin embedded sections after quenching endogenous obstruction. The involvement of visceral SMCs in pelvi-ureteric peroxidase activity and antigen retrieval followed by reaction junction obstruction (PUJO), a frequent cause for persisting with secondary antibodies. Primary and secondary antibodies used dilatation of the upper urinary tract (hydronephrosis), underlies were mouse anti-smooth muscle a actin (SMaA, 1A4, Sigma; 1/ the significant interest in understanding the mechanisms that 1000), guinea-pig anti-TSHZ3 antibody (1/5000) produced by A. control the differentiation of visceral SMCs [16,17,18,19]. Garratt’s laboratory (Max-Delbrueck-Center, Berlin, Germany). Previous data suggested that both TSHZ3 and SOX9 critically Rabbit anti-SOX9 antibody (1/1000) was kindly provided by Dr regulate the onset of the myogenic program in the developing Pascal de Santa Barbara (Inserm, ERI25, Montpellier, France). ureter. However it is not clear whether TSHZ3 and SOX9 act Other primary antibodies were rabbit anti-b-galactosidase (Cap- independently or are part of a regulatory network that controls b cytodifferentiation of the ureteric mesenchyme. Here, we set out to pel, 1/500), mouse anti- -galactosidase