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Article ERα activity depends on interaction and target site corecruitment with phosphorylated CREB1 BERTO, Mélissa, et al. Abstract The two transcription factors estrogen receptor α (ERα) and cyclic adenosinemonophosphate (cAMP)–responsive element binding protein 1 (CREB1) mediate different signals, bind different response elements, and control different transcriptional programs. And yet, results obtained with transfected reporter genes suggested that their activities may intersect. We demonstrate here that CREB1 stimulates and is necessary for ERα activity on a transfected reporter gene and several endogenous targets both in response to its cognate ligand estrogen and to ligand-independent activation by cAMP. The stimulatory activity of CREB1 requires its DNA binding and activation by phosphorylation, and affects the chromatin recruitment of ERα. CREB1 and ERα are biochemically associated and share hundreds to thousands of chromatin binding sites upon stimulation by estrogen and cAMP, respectively. These shared regulatory activitiesmay underlie the anti-apoptotic effects of estrogen and cAMP signaling in ERα-positive breast cancer cells. Moreover, high levels of CREB1 are associated with good prognosis in ERα-positive breast cancer patients, [...] Reference BERTO, Mélissa, et al. ERα activity depends on interaction and target site corecruitment with phosphorylated CREB1. Life Science Alliance, 2018, vol. 1, no. 3, p. 1-14 DOI : 10.26508/lsa.201800055 Available at: http://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:106322 Disclaimer: layout of this document may differ from the published version. 1 / 1 Published Online: 7 June, 2018 | Supp Info: http://doi.org/10.26508/lsa.201800055 Downloaded from life-science-alliance.org on 7 June, 2018 Research Article ERα activity depends on interaction and target site corecruitment with phosphorylated CREB1 Melissa Berto1, Valerie Jean1, Wilbert Zwart2, Didier Picard1 The two transcription factors estrogen receptor α (ERα) and cy- protein (CBP) and its paralog p300 (Mayr & Montminy, 2001). Thus, clic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP)–responsive element binding whereas ERα is typically a ligand-activated transcription factor, protein 1 (CREB1) mediate different signals, bind different re- CREB1 is signal responsive through phosphorylation. Intriguingly, sponse elements, and control different transcriptional programs. unliganded ERα can also be activated by cAMP signaling in the And yet, results obtained with transfected reporter genes sug- absence of estrogens (Power et al, 1991; Aronica & Katzenellenbogen, gested that their activities may intersect. We demonstrate here 1993; Smith et al, 1993; Lazennec et al, 2001; Dudek & Picard, 2008; that CREB1 stimulates and is necessary for ERα activity on a Carascossa et al, 2010; de Leeuw et al, 2013). We had found this transfected reporter gene and several endogenous targets both in extreme form of signaling crosstalk to be dependent on the PKA- response to its cognate ligand estrogen and to ligand-independent mediated phosphorylation of the coregulators CARM1 (Carascossa activation by cAMP. The stimulatory activity of CREB1 requires its et al, 2010) and LSD1 (Bennesch et al, 2016), but could not exclude DNA binding and activation by phosphorylation, and affects the that yet other factors might be involved (Bennesch & Picard, 2015). chromatin recruitment of ERα. CREB1 and ERα are biochemically CREB1 not only controls the expression of its own direct target associated and share hundreds to thousands of chromatin binding genes (Mayr & Montminy, 2001; Zhang et al, 2005), but is also sites upon stimulation by estrogen and cAMP, respectively. These involved in signaling crosstalk with nuclear receptors such as shared regulatory activities may underlie the anti-apoptotic effects the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) (Akerblom et al, 1988) and ERα α of estrogen and cAMP signaling in ER -positive breast cancer cells. (Lazennec et al, 2001). Whether CREB1 stimulates or represses Moreover, high levels of CREB1 are associated with good prognosis nuclear receptor activity seems to be cell-context dependent α in ER -positive breast cancer patients, which may be because of its (Lazennec et al, 2001; Diaz-Gallardo et al, 2010; Ratman et al, 2013). α ability to promote ER functions, thereby maintaining it as a suc- Similarly, ERα interacts with a variety of transcription factors cessful therapeutic target. (Heldring et al, 2007, 2011), be it by tethering to them on their target sites, such as in the case of the Jun/Fos heterodimer AP-1 (Kushner DOI 10.26508/lsa.201800055 | Received 8 March 2018 | Revised 18 May 2018 | Accepted 22 May 2018 | Published online 7 June 2018 et al, 2000) and SP1 (Saville et al, 2000), or through a variety of other, not always well-characterized mechanisms. ERα and the NF-κB display both positive and negative interactions (Kalaitzidis & Gilmore, 2005; Franco et al, 2015), as do ER α and the retinoic Introduction acid receptors at the level of chromatin binding (Hua et al, 2009; Ross-Innes et al, 2010). The crosstalk between GR and ERα may be Estrogen receptor α (ERα) and cAMP-responsive element binding highly context dependent because GR has been demonstrated to protein 1 (CREB1) are two unrelated transcription factors that, at repress some of the ERα program by disrupting its transactivation first sight, have nothing to do with each other. ERα is a member of complexes (Yang et al, 2017) and to stimulate some ERα responses the nuclear receptor superfamily; in response to binding its cognate by promoting chromatin remodeling such that ERα loading is fa- ligand estrogen, it is activated as a transcription factor and binds as cilitated (Voss et al, 2011; Swinstead et al, 2016a). a homodimer to specific DNA sequences across the genome to In view of the fact that both ERα and CREB1 mediate PKA- regulate target genes (Heldring et al, 2007; Flach & Zwart, 2016). mediated cAMP signaling and considering previous reports on CREB1 and other family members such as ATF1 contain a basic their crosstalk (Lazennec et al, 2001; Heldring et al, 2011), we decided region for binding DNA followed by a leucine zipper for homo- or to explore the mechanism and the physiological or pathological heterodimerization; as its name indicates, it is a paradigmatic target significance of signaling crosstalk in more detail. Because ERα is of the cAMP-activated PKA. Upon phosphorylation of serine 133 by a key proliferative factor in breast cancer, we chose ERα-positive PKA, pCREB1 can specifically recruit the coactivator CREB binding breast cancer cells as cellular model system. 1Departement´ de Biologie Cellulaire and Institute of Genetics and Genomics of Geneva, Universite´ de Genève, Genève, Switzerland 2Division of Oncogenomics, Oncode Institute, Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Correspondence: [email protected] ©2018Berto et al. https://doi.org/10.26508/lsa.201800055 vol 1 | no 3 | e201800055 1of14 Results CREB1 (CREB1-S133D) (Fig S1A). The luciferase reporter assays of Fig 1 show that the non-phosphorylatable CREB1 mutant, acting as α CREB1 stimulates the transcriptional activity of the liganded and a dominant-negative mutant, reduces both ER and CREB1 activities α unliganded ERα and that the phosphoserine-mimetic CREB1 mutant stimulates ER similarly to wild-type CREB1. Conversely, when CREB1 was knocked – To confirm and characterize further the positive contribution of down by RNA interference (Fig S1B C), the luciferase activities of both CREB1 to ERα activity (Lazennec et al, 2001), we performed luciferase reporters were decreased (Fig 1D). E2 does not seem to be able to reporter assays with the human ERα-positive breast cancer cell line promote the association of ERα with the DNA-bound CREB1 or to MDA-MB-134 (Reiner & Katzenellenbogen, 1986). Cells were trans- activate the CRE-Luc reporter; unlike what has been reported by others fected with luciferase reporters without an estrogen responsive (Heldring et al, 2011), ERα is apparently unable to work by tethering element (Luc), with an estrogen responsive element (ERE-Luc), or under our experimental conditions. Note that based on experiments with a CREB responsive element (CRE-Luc) (Fig 1). Cells were treated with two of the CREB1 mutants and exogenous expression of ERα,we either with the physiological estrogen 17β-estradiol (E2) or with conclude that CREB1 is also required for ERα function in ERα-negative a cocktail of the adenylate cyclase activator forskolin and the HEK293T cells (Fig S2). Overall, these results indicate that CREB1 is both phosphodiesterase inhibitor 3-isobutyl-1-methylxanthine (FI) to sufficient to boost ERα activity and necessary for its activity in response boost intracellular levels of cAMP. As expected (Dudek & Picard, to either E2 or cAMP and that it is CREB1 itself, rather than other 2008; Carascossa et al, 2010; Bennesch et al, 2016), ERα is tran- members of its family, that is involved. scriptionally activated by both treatments (Fig 1A); CREB1 is only Having demonstrated the importance of CREB1 for a transfected activated by cAMP and E2-activated ERα cannot activate tran- ERα reporter gene, we next evaluated this for endogenous ERα target scription through a CRE (Fig 1B). Without a response element, only genes (Fig 2). Overall, the overexpression of wild-type CREB1 or the basal activity could be observed (Fig 1C). Overexpression of wild- CREB1 mutants A-CREB1 and S133A had the same effects on three type CREB1 increases the activity of both ERα and CREB1 luciferase representative ERα target genes (Fig 2A–C). The impact of the CREB1 reporters, whereas overexpression of a dominant-negative form of mutant S133D on endogenous target genes induced by cAMP again CREB1 (A-CREB1), which is deficient in DNA binding because it lacks recapitulated its effects on the transfected reporter gene, but S133D the basic region N-terminal to the leucine zipper dimerization reduced the response to E2 for the three genes examined here. The domain (Ahn et al, 1998), reduces reporter activities (Fig 1A–C). Note that latter finding may be a result of substantial differences in experi- ERα levels are not affected by the overexpression of CREB1 (see below).