Svejstrup, J. Q. | Search bioRxiv

bioRxiv2021

The Aspartyl Protease Ddi1 Is Essential for Erythrocyte Invasion by the Malaria Parasite

Malaria pathology is caused by the exponential replication of Plasmodium parasites in the blood stream. The bottleneck of the parasite life cycle is the invasion of erythrocytes immediately after parasites egress from infected red blood cells. DNA damage-inducible protein 1 (Ddi1) is a conserved eukaryotic proteasome shuttle protein containing an internal retroviral-like protease domain. Using conditional genetics, we now show that the proteolytic activity of the P. falciparum homologue, PfDdi1, is critically required for invasion of red blood cells. Furthermore, PfDdi1 disruption results in the accumulation of highly polyubiquitinated proteins that can be processed by purified PfDdi1 or distant eukaryotic homologues. We also show that PfDdi1 interacts with multiple components of the ubiquitin-proteasome system and that parasites lacking PfDdi1 are more sensitive to proteasome inhibition. Overall, this study establishes PfDdi1 as a key component of the eukaryotic ubiquitin-proteasome system and as a promising antimalarial target.

cell biology↗

bioRxiv2021

Developmental regulation of neuronal gene expression by Elongator complex protein 1 dosage.

Elongator is a highly conserved protein complex required for transcriptional elongation, intracellular transport and translation. Elongator complex protein 1 (ELP1) is the scaffolding protein of Elongator and is essential for its assembly and stability. Familial dysautonomia (FD), a hereditary sensory and autonomic neuropathy, is caused by a mutation in ELP1 that lead to a tissue-specific reduction of ELP1 protein. Our work to generate a phenotypic mouse model for FD led to the discovery that homozygous deletion of the mouse Elp1 gene leads to embryonic lethality prior to mid-gestation. Given that FD is caused by a reduction, not loss, of ELP1, we generated two new mouse models by introducing different copy numbers of the human FD ELP1 transgene into the Elp1 knockout mouse (Elp1-/-) and observed that human ELP1 expression rescues embryonic development in a dose dependent manner. We then conducted a comprehensive transcriptome analysis in mouse embryos to identify genes and pathways whose expression correlates with the amount of ELP1. We found that ELP1 is essential for the expression of genes responsible for the formation and development of the nervous system. Further, gene length analysis of the differentially expressed genes showed that the loss of Elp1 mainly impacts the expression of long genes and that by gradually restoring Elongator their expression is progressively rescued. Finally, through evaluation of co-expression modules, we identified gene sets with unique expression patterns that depended on ELP1 expression. Overall, this study highlights the crucial role of ELP1 during early embryonic neuronal development and reveals gene networks and biological pathways that are regulated by Elongator.

developmental biology↗