PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

Nevan J Krogan

Publications and source records attributed to Nevan J Krogan.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2025

Ebola virus VP35 NNLNS motif modulates viral RNA synthesis and MIB2-mediated signaling.

Ebola virus (EBOV) is a nonsegmented, negative-sense virus (NNSV) with a single-stranded RNA genome. EBOV encodes for a limited number of proteins and thus depends on host factors to facilitate viral replication and pathogenesis. Of the virus-encoded proteins, multifunctional EBOV VP35 (eVP35) is necessary for host immune evasion and viral RNA synthesis. Previous proteomics studies identified an interaction between eVP35 and the host E3 ubiquitin ligase Mindbomb 2 (MIB2). Here, we show how an NNLNS (Asn-Asn-Leu-Asn-Ser) motif (residues 201 to 205) within eVP35 serves as a binding site for MIB2. This motif is critical for eVP35-dependent inhibition of MIB2-mediated interferon induction. It is also important for EBOV RNA synthesis as MIB2 binding to eVP35 inhibited EBOV minigenome activity. Altogether, these findings highlight the importance of the eVP35 protein and the role of host factors in EBOV infection.

Ebolavirus↗
PubMed2025

Inference of differential kinase interaction networks with KINference.

MOTIVATION: Differential kinase interaction networks (DKINs) are networks containing kinase-substrate links that are differentially active between two conditions. Existing methods are either able to predict condition-agnostic kinase-substrate links or condition-specific differential kinase activity, but do not provide differential kinase-substrate links. Moreover, existing methods for predicting kinase-substrate links usually rely on curated biochemical knowledge. Thus, there is a lack of data-driven DKIN inference methods that are also applicable when prior knowledge is scarce. RESULTS: To address this need, we present KINference. KINference combines computation of a baseline KIN representing the space of all possible kinase-substrate links with filters applied to nodes and edges to identify differentially active subnetworks that are relevant in the context of a specific phosphoproteomics dataset. For the node filters, we rely on functional relevance and differential phosphorylation scores; for the edge filters, we make use of prize-collecting Steiner trees and correlations between phosphorylation sites of kinases and their target proteins. Tests on two phosphoproteomics datasets (kinase inhibition in breast cancer cells, SARS-CoV-2 infection in Calu-3 cells) show that the proposed filters produce significant results in terms of overlap with known interactions between kinases and phosphorylation sites. Furthermore, a case study on the SARS-CoV-2 infection data, suggests a potential host pathway linked to virus replication, showcasing the process of hypothesis generation utilizing DKINs computed by KINference. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: KINference is available as an R package at https://github.com/bionetslab/KINference and https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15411150. Scripts to reproduce the results are available at https://github.com/bionetslab/KINference-Evaluation-Scripts and https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15424599.

Humans↗
PubMed2025

Enhanced RNA replication and pathogenesis in recent SARS-CoV-2 variants harboring the L260F mutation in NSP6.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been driven by SARS-CoV-2 variants with enhanced transmission and immune escape. Apart from extensive evolution in the Spike protein, non-Spike mutations are accumulating across the entire viral genome and their functional impact is not well understood. To address the contribution of these mutations, we reconstructed genomes of recent Omicron variants with disabled Spike expression (replicons) to systematically compare their RNA replication capabilities independently from Spike. We also used a single reference replicon and complemented it with various Omicron variant Spike proteins to quantify viral entry capabilities in single-round infection assays. Viral entry and RNA replication were negatively correlated, suggesting that as variants evolve reduced entry functions under growing immune pressure on Spike, RNA replication increases as a compensatory mechanism. We identified multiple mutations across the viral genome that enhanced viral RNA replication. NSP6 emerged as a hotspot with a distinct L260F mutation independently arising in the BQ.1.1 and XBB.1.16 variants. Using mutant and revertant NSP6 viral clones, the L260F mutation was validated to enhance viral replication in cells and increase pathogenesis in mice. Notably, this mutation reduced host lipid droplet content by NSP6. Collectively, a systematic analysis of RNA replication of recent Omicron variants defined NSP6's key role in viral RNA replication that provides insight into evolutionary trajectories of recent variants with possible therapeutic implications.

SARS-CoV-2↗
PubMed2007

Investigating the in vivo activity of the DeaD protein using protein-protein interactions and the translational activity of structured chloramphenicol acetyltransferase mRNAs.

Here, we report the use of an in vivo protein-protein interaction detection approach together with focused follow-up experiments to study the function of the DeaD protein in Escherichia coli. In this method, functions are assigned to proteins based on the interactions they make with others in the living cell. The assigned functions are further confirmed using follow-up experiments. The DeaD protein has been characterized in vitro as a putative prokaryotic factor required for the formation of translation initiation complexes on structured mRNAs. Although the RNA helicase activity of DeaD has been demonstrated in vitro, its in vivo activity remains controversial. Here, using a method called sequential peptide affinity (SPA) tagging, we show that DeaD interacts with certain ribosomal proteins as well as a series of other nucleic acid binding proteins. Focused follow-up experiments provide evidence for the mRNA helicase activity of the DeaD protein complex during translation initiation. DeaD overexpression compensates for the reduction of the translation activity caused by a structure placed at the initiation region of a chloramphenicol acetyltransferase gene (cat) used as a reporter. Deletion of the deaD gene, encoding DeaD, abolishes the translation activity of the mRNA with an inhibitory structure at its initiation region. Increasing the growth temperature disrupts RNA secondary structures and bypasses the DeaD requirement. These observations suggest that DeaD is involved in destabilizing mRNA structures during translation initiation. This study also provides further confirmation that large-scale protein-protein interaction data can be suitable to study protein functions in E. coli.

Base Sequence↗
PubMed2007

Toward a comprehensive atlas of the physical interactome of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Defining protein complexes is critical to virtually all aspects of cell biology. Two recent affinity purification/mass spectrometry studies in Saccharomyces cerevisiae have vastly increased the available protein interaction data. The practical utility of such high throughput interaction sets, however, is substantially decreased by the presence of false positives. Here we created a novel probabilistic metric that takes advantage of the high density of these data, including both the presence and absence of individual associations, to provide a measure of the relative confidence of each potential protein-protein interaction. This analysis largely overcomes the noise inherent in high throughput immunoprecipitation experiments. For example, of the 12,122 binary interactions in the general repository of interaction data (BioGRID) derived from these two studies, we marked 7504 as being of substantially lower confidence. Additionally, applying our metric and a stringent cutoff we identified a set of 9074 interactions (including 4456 that were not among the 12,122 interactions) with accuracy comparable to that of conventional small scale methodologies. Finally we organized proteins into coherent multisubunit complexes using hierarchical clustering. This work thus provides a highly accurate physical interaction map of yeast in a format that is readily accessible to the biological community.

Cluster Analysis↗
PubMed2006

The RNA polymerase II kinase Ctk1 regulates positioning of a 5' histone methylation boundary along genes.

In yeast and other eukaryotes, the histone methyltransferase Set1 mediates methylation of lysine 4 on histone H3 (H3K4me). This modification marks the 5' end of transcribed genes in a 5'-to-3' tri- to di- to monomethyl gradient and promotes association of chromatin-remodeling and histone-modifying enzymes. Here we show that Ctk1, the serine 2 C-terminal domain (CTD) kinase for RNA polymerase II (RNAP II), regulates H3K4 methylation. We found that CTK1 deletion nearly abolished H3K4 monomethylation yet caused a significant increase in H3K4 di- and trimethylation. Both in individual genes and genome-wide, loss of CTK1 disrupted the H3K4 methylation patterns normally observed. H3K4me2 and H3K4me3 spread 3' into the bodies of genes, while H3K4 monomethylation was diminished. These effects were dependent on the catalytic activity of Ctk1 but are independent of Set2-mediated H3K36 methylation. Furthermore, these effects are not due to spurious transcription initiation in the bodies of genes, to changes in RNAP II occupancy, to changes in serine 5 CTD phosphorylation patterns, or to "transcriptional stress." These data show that Ctk1 acts to restrict the spread of H3K4 methylation through a mechanism that is independent of a general transcription defect. The evidence presented suggests that Ctk1 controls the maintenance of suppressive chromatin in the coding regions of genes by both promoting H3K36 methylation, which leads to histone deacetylation, and preventing the 3' spread of H3K4 trimethylation, a mark associated with transcriptional initiation.

5' Flanking Region↗
PubMed2006

A genome-wide screen identifies the evolutionarily conserved KEOPS complex as a telomere regulator.

Telomere capping is the essential function of telomeres. To identify new genes involved in telomere capping, we carried out a genome-wide screen in Saccharomyces cerevisiae for suppressors of cdc13-1, an allele of the telomere-capping protein Cdc13. We report the identification of five novel suppressors, including the previously uncharacterized gene YML036W, which we name CGI121. Cgi121 is part of a conserved protein complex -- the KEOPS complex -- containing the protein kinase Bud32, the putative peptidase Kae1, and the uncharacterized protein Gon7. Deletion of CGI121 suppresses cdc13-1 via the dramatic reduction in ssDNA levels that accumulate in cdc13-1 cgi121 mutants. Deletion of BUD32 or other KEOPS components leads to short telomeres and a failure to add telomeres de novo to DNA double-strand breaks. Our results therefore indicate that the KEOPS complex promotes both telomere uncapping and telomere elongation.

Evolution, Molecular↗
PubMed2006

Global landscape of protein complexes in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Identification of protein-protein interactions often provides insight into protein function, and many cellular processes are performed by stable protein complexes. We used tandem affinity purification to process 4,562 different tagged proteins of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Each preparation was analysed by both matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry to increase coverage and accuracy. Machine learning was used to integrate the mass spectrometry scores and assign probabilities to the protein-protein interactions. Among 4,087 different proteins identified with high confidence by mass spectrometry from 2,357 successful purifications, our core data set (median precision of 0.69) comprises 7,123 protein-protein interactions involving 2,708 proteins. A Markov clustering algorithm organized these interactions into 547 protein complexes averaging 4.9 subunits per complex, about half of them absent from the MIPS database, as well as 429 additional interactions between pairs of complexes. The data (all of which are available online) will help future studies on individual proteins as well as functional genomics and systems biology.

Biological Evolution↗
PubMed2006

The Saccharomyces cerevisiae histone H2A variant Htz1 is acetylated by NuA4.

The histone H2A variant H2A.Z (Saccharomyces cerevisiae Htz1) plays roles in transcription, DNA repair, chromosome stability, and limiting telomeric silencing. The Swr1-Complex (SWR-C) inserts Htz1 into chromatin and shares several subunits with the NuA4 histone acetyltransferase. Furthermore, mutants of these two complexes share several phenotypes, suggesting they may work together. Here we show that NuA4 acetylates Htz1 Lys 14 (K14) after the histone is assembled into chromatin by the SWR-C. K14 mutants exhibit specific defects in chromosome transmission without affecting transcription, telomeric silencing, or DNA repair. Function-specific modifications may help explain how the same component of chromatin can function in diverse pathways.

Acetylation↗
PubMed2006

Systems-level analyses identify extensive coupling among gene expression machines.

Here, we develop computational methods to assess and consolidate large, diverse protein interaction data sets, with the objective of identifying proteins involved in the coupling of multicomponent complexes within the yeast gene expression pathway. From among approximately 43 000 total interactions and 2100 proteins, our methods identify known structural complexes, such as the spliceosome and SAGA, and functional modules, such as the DEAD-box helicases, within the interaction network of proteins involved in gene expression. Our process identifies and ranks instances of three distinct, biologically motivated motifs, or patterns of coupling among distinct machineries involved in different subprocesses of gene expression. Our results confirm known coupling among transcription, RNA processing, and export, and predict further coupling with translation and nonsense-mediated decay. We systematically corroborate our analysis with two independent, comprehensive experimental data sets. The methods presented here may be generalized to other biological processes and organisms to generate principled, systems-level network models that provide experimentally testable hypotheses for coupling among biological machines.

Cluster Analysis↗
PubMed2006

GammaH2AX and its role in DNA double-strand break repair.

One of the earliest responses to a DNA double-strand break (DSB) is the carboxy-terminal phosphorylation of budding yeast H2A (metazoan histone H2AX) to create gammaH2A (or gammaH2AX). This chromatin modification stretches more than tens of kilobases around the DSB and has been proposed to play numerous roles in break recognition and repair, although it may not be the primary signal for many of these events. Studies suggest that gammaH2A(X) has 2 more direct roles: (i) to recruit cohesin around the DSB, and (ii) to maintain a checkpoint arrest. Recent work has identified other factors, including chromatin remodelers and protein phosphatases, which target gammaH2A(X) and regulate DSB repair/recovery.

DNA↗
PubMed2006

A strategy for extracting and analyzing large-scale quantitative epistatic interaction data.

Recently, approaches have been developed for high-throughput identification of synthetic sick/lethal gene pairs. However, these are only a specific example of the broader phenomenon of epistasis, wherein the presence of one mutation modulates the phenotype of another. We present analysis techniques for generating high-confidence quantitative epistasis scores from measurements made using synthetic genetic array and epistatic miniarray profile (E-MAP) technology, as well as several tools for higher-level analysis of the resulting data that are greatly enhanced by the quantitative score and detection of alleviating interactions.

Epistasis, Genetic↗
PubMed2006

Functional genomics of the yeast DNA-damage response.

High-throughput approaches are beginning to have an impact on many areas of yeast biology. Two recent studies, using different experimental platforms, provide insight into new pathways involved in the response of yeast to DNA damage.

DNA Damage↗
PubMed2005

A phosphatase complex that dephosphorylates gammaH2AX regulates DNA damage checkpoint recovery.

One of the earliest marks of a double-strand break (DSB) in eukaryotes is serine phosphorylation of the histone variant H2AX at the carboxy-terminal SQE motif to create gammaH2AX-containing nucleosomes. Budding-yeast histone H2A is phosphorylated in a similar manner by the checkpoint kinases Tel1 and Mec1 (ref. 2; orthologous to mammalian ATM and ATR, respectively) over a 50-kilobase region surrounding the DSB. This modification is important for recruiting numerous DSB-recognition and repair factors to the break site, including DNA damage checkpoint proteins, chromatin remodellers and cohesins. Multiple mechanisms for eliminating gammaH2AX as DNA repair completes are possible, including removal by histone exchange followed potentially by degradation, or, alternatively, dephosphorylation. Here we describe a three-protein complex (HTP-C, for histone H2A phosphatase complex) containing the phosphatase Pph3 that regulates the phosphorylation status of gammaH2AX in vivo and efficiently dephosphorylates gammaH2AX in vitro. gammaH2AX is lost from chromatin surrounding a DSB independently of the HTP-C, indicating that the phosphatase targets gammaH2AX after its displacement from DNA. The dephosphorylation of gammaH2AX by the HTP-C is necessary for efficient recovery from the DNA damage checkpoint.

Cell Cycle↗
PubMed2005

Cotranscriptional set2 methylation of histone H3 lysine 36 recruits a repressive Rpd3 complex.

The yeast histone deacetylase Rpd3 can be recruited to promoters to repress transcription initiation. Biochemical, genetic, and gene-expression analyses show that Rpd3 exists in two distinct complexes. The smaller complex, Rpd3C(S), shares Sin3 and Ume1 with Rpd3C(L) but contains the unique subunits Rco1 and Eaf3. Rpd3C(S) mutants exhibit phenotypes remarkably similar to those of Set2, a histone methyltransferase associated with elongating RNA polymerase II. Chromatin immunoprecipitation and biochemical experiments indicate that the chromodomain of Eaf3 recruits Rpd3C(S) to nucleosomes methylated by Set2 on histone H3 lysine 36, leading to deacetylation of transcribed regions. This pathway apparently acts to negatively regulate transcription because deleting the genes for Set2 or Rpd3C(S) bypasses the requirement for the positive elongation factor Bur1/Bur2.

Acetylation↗
PubMed2005

Exploration of the function and organization of the yeast early secretory pathway through an epistatic miniarray profile.

We present a strategy for generating and analyzing comprehensive genetic-interaction maps, termed E-MAPs (epistatic miniarray profiles), comprising quantitative measures of aggravating or alleviating interactions between gene pairs. Crucial to the interpretation of E-MAPs is their high-density nature made possible by focusing on logically connected gene subsets and including essential genes. Described here is the analysis of an E-MAP of genes acting in the yeast early secretory pathway. Hierarchical clustering, together with novel analytical strategies and experimental verification, revealed or clarified the role of many proteins involved in extensively studied processes such as sphingolipid metabolism and retention of HDEL proteins. At a broader level, analysis of the E-MAP delineated pathway organization and components of physical complexes and illustrated the interconnection between the various secretory processes. Extension of this strategy to other logically connected gene subsets in yeast and higher eukaryotes should provide critical insights into the functional/organizational principles of biological systems.

Cluster Analysis↗
PubMed2005

BUR kinase selectively regulates H3 K4 trimethylation and H2B ubiquitylation through recruitment of the PAF elongation complex.

Histone-lysine methylation is linked to transcriptional regulation and the control of epigenetic inheritance. Lysine residues can be mono-, di-, or trimethylated, and it has been suggested that each methylation state of a given lysine may impart a unique biological function. In yeast, histone H3 lysine 4 (K4) is mono-, di-, and trimethylated by the Set1 histone methyltransferase. Previous studies show that Set1 associates with RNA polymerase II and demarcates transcriptionally active genes with K4 trimethylation. To determine whether K4 trimethylation might be selectively regulated, we screened a library of yeast deletion mutants associated with transcriptional regulation and chromatin function. We identified BUR2, a cyclin for the Bur1/2 (BUR) cyclin-dependent protein kinase, as a specific regulator of K4 trimethylation. Surprisingly, BUR also regulated H2B monoubiquitylation, whereas other K4 methylation states and H3 lysine 79 (K79) methylation were unaffected. Synthetic genetic array (SGA) and transcription microarray analyses of a BUR2 mutant revealed that BUR is functionally similar to the PAF, Rad6, and Set1 complexes. These data suggest that BUR acts upstream of these factors to control their function. In support, we show that recruitment of the PAF elongation complex to genes is significantly impaired in a BUR2 deletion. Our data reveal a novel function for the BUR kinase in transcriptional regulation through the selective control of histone modifications.

Chromatin Immunoprecipitation↗