Browsing by Person "Melgar, Clint"

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Charakterisierung von Interaktionspartnern des Kernrezeptors CAR ("Constitutive Androstane Receptor") mittels MALDI-TOF Massenspektrometrie
(2010) Melgar, Clint; Graeve, Lutz
The human nuclear receptor "constitutive androstane receptor" (CAR; NR1I3) plays a pivotal role in the induction of drug metabolism and transport by phenobarbital-type inducers. The hepatic expression of phase I and phase II drug metabolizing enzymes and of transporters is activated by CAR in response to structurally diverse chemicals. In addition to xenobiotic detoxification, activation of CAR is also involved in other hepatic functions like fatty acid oxidation, gluconeogenesis, clearance of steroid hormones and bilirubin. In primary hepatocytes, CAR resides predominantly in the cytoplasm associated with other proteins in a multimeric complex of which some components still remain to be identified. Upon exposure to inducers CAR dissociates from the already identified proteins of the complex, the cytosolic CAR retention protein (CCRP) and HSP 90 resulting in its translocation into the nucleus, where it heterodimerizes with the retinoid X receptor (RXR). The CAR-RXR heterodimer binds to its respective response elements in the regulatory region of target genes and recruits coactivators like SRC-1 (steroide receptor co-aktivator), GRIP1 (glutamate receptor interacting protein) and PGC 1 (peroxysom-proliferator-aktivated receptor γ co-activator 1) to induce gene transcription. To better understand the function of CAR, this study was focused on the identification of proteins which associate with CAR. The aim of this work was to identify putative interaction partners of the nuclear receptor CAR which are expressed in liver to get additional information on structure and regulation of the native protein multimer complex und to obtain a better understanding of the functionality of CAR. Hence, we have established an in vitro pulldown assay with liver homogenate to analyze protein-protein interactions of CAR. As a first step we generated GST and GST-CAR fusion proteins which were expressed in E. coli followed by affinity purification. Then we incubated the fusion proteins with total liver homogenate and separated bound proteins with SDS-PAGE. After visualization with silver staining, the protein bands were excised and prepared for mass spectrometry. For identification of new interaction partners of CAR in liver, the Matrix-assisted laser desorption and ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometer (MALDI-TOF) was used. After optimization of the pulldown assay we could identify several proteins like cytoskeletal proteins (e.g. lamin A), enzymes (e.g. pyruvate carboxylase, GAPDH) and chaperones (e.g. HSP 70) as binding to CAR. As an especially interesting interaction partner of CAR we decided to further investigate the interaction of CAR with BRG1-associated factor (BAF) 155. This protein is a component of the mammalian SWI / SNF chromatin remodeling complex that plays an important role in fundamental cellular processes such as transcription, replication, and the repair of chromatin. Interaction of GST-CAR-LBD fusion protein was confirmed by additional methods like pulldown assay of GST-CAR with (35S)-methionine labeled BAF 155 in vitro and co-immunoprecipitation of the two proteins. Additionally, we could confirm BAF 155 interaction with CAR by Western blotting of the original pulldown samples. Analyzing the interaction of CAR and BAF 155 with RNA interference was not successful, since the method could not be optimized and validated appropriately, due to time constraints. In conclusion, we were able to establish a highly reliable and reproducible assay to investigate protein interactions resulting in the significant identification of new interaction partners of CAR. Regarding the identified CAR interaction partner BAF 155, this protein or the complete SWI / SNF complex could play a functional role in CAR-mediated transcriptional activation, however further research is needed to establish the role of BAF 155 in CAR function.