Sumoylation regulates nuclear localization of lipin-1alpha in neuronal cells.

Lipin-1 is a protein that has dual functions as a phosphatidic acid phosphohydrolase (PAP) and a nuclear transcriptional coactivator. It remains unknown how the nuclear localization and coactivator functions of lipin-1 are regulated. Here, we show that lipin-1 (including both the alpha and beta isof...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Guang-Hui Liu, Larry Gerace
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2009-09-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0007031&type=printable
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Summary:Lipin-1 is a protein that has dual functions as a phosphatidic acid phosphohydrolase (PAP) and a nuclear transcriptional coactivator. It remains unknown how the nuclear localization and coactivator functions of lipin-1 are regulated. Here, we show that lipin-1 (including both the alpha and beta isoforms) is modified by sumoylation at two consensus sumoylation sites. We are unable to detect sumoylation of the related proteins lipin-2 and lipin-3. Lipin-1 is sumoylated at relatively high levels in brain, where lipin-1alpha is the predominant form. In cultured embryonic cortical neurons and SH-SY5Y neuronal cells, ectopically expressed lipin-1alpha is localized in both the nucleus and the cytoplasm, and the nuclear localization is abrogated by mutating the consensus sumyolation motifs. The sumoylation site mutant of lipin-1alpha loses the capacity to coactivate the transcriptional (co-) activators PGC-1alpha and MEF2, consistent with its nuclear exclusion. Thus, these results show that sumoylation facilitates the nuclear localization and transcriptional coactivator behavior of lipin-1alpha that we observe in cultured neuronal cells, and suggest that lipin-1alpha may act as a sumoylation-regulated transcriptional coactivator in brain.
ISSN:1932-6203