Visualizing a protein decision complex in actin filament length control

Seen at the Gelles Lab Little Engine Shop blog this week, commentary on a new paper in Nature Communications, published in collaboration with the Goode Lab and researchers from New England Biolabs.

“Single-molecule visualization of a formin-capping protein ‘decision complex’ at the actin filament barbed end”

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Regulation of actin filament length is a central process by which eukaryotic cells control the shape, architecture, and dynamics of their actin networks. This regulation plays a fundamental role in cell motility, morphogenesis, and a host of processes specific to particular cell types. This paper by recently graduated [Biophysics and Structural Biology] Ph.D. student Jeffrey Bombardier and collaborators resolves the long-standing mystery of how formins and capping protein work in concert and antagonistically to control actin filament length. Bombardier used the CoSMoS multi-wavelength single-molecule fluorescence microscopy technique to to discover and characterize a novel tripartite complex formed by a formin, capping protein, and the actin filament barbed end. Quantitative analysis of the kinetic mechanism showed that this complex is the essential intermediate and decision point in converting a growing formin-bound filament into a static capping protein-bound filament, and the reverse. Interestingly, the authors show that “mDia1 displaced from the barbed end by CP can randomly slide along the filament and later return to the barbed end to re-form the complex.” The results define the essential features of the molecular mechanism of filament length regulation by formin and capping protein; this mechanism predicts several new ways by which cells are likely to couple upstream regulatory inputs to filament length control.

Single-molecule visualization of a formin-capping protein ‘decision complex’ at the actin filament barbed end
Jeffrey P. Bombardier, Julian A. Eskin, Richa Jaiswal, Ivan R. Corrêa, Jr., Ming-Qun Xu, Bruce L. Goode, and Jeff Gelles
Nature Communications  6:8707 (2015)

The capping protein expression plasmid described in this article is available from Addgene.

Readers interested in this subject should also see a related article by Shekhar et al published simultaneously in the same journal.  We are grateful to the authors of that article for coordinating submission so that the two articles were published together.

Yoshida kicks off Summer seminar series

Assistant Professor of Biology Satoshi Yoshida kicked off the Life Sciences Summer Research Seminar series today, describing his research on wound healing in yeast to a capacity crowd in Rosenstiel 118. Wound healing in cells has been a difficult problem to study, partly because methods to create defined wounds in cells in a genetic model system have been lacking Yoshida and co-workers discovered that after focusing laser light at sublethal dosages on a budding yeast cell, the yeast cell responses by reorganizing its actin cytoskeleton so that the focus of growth goes away from the bud and towards the wound site. Yoshida described experiments to then define the genetic requirements for this shift in focus, with key players including Rho GTPase, protein kinase C, and the formin Bni1. Yoshida discussed results from his recent Cell paper “Competition between Cell Polarization and Cellular Wound Healing” as well as more recent ongoing results from the lab. There was a lively discussion following the seminar with eager students suggesting all kinds of possible follow-up experiments.

The seminar series will continue next Monday, July 16 at noon in Rosenstiel 118, with presentations from Jerome Menet (Rosbash lab) and Adam Osborne (Wangh lab).

Formins require assistance; not so different from other actin nucleators

Formins are a family of proteins conserved across a wide range of eukaryotes and constitute a major class of actin nucleators. In a paper recently published in Molecular Biology of the Cell, a team led by Ph.D. student Brian Graziano in the laboratory of Professor Bruce Goode made the surprising finding that formins depend on co-factors to efficiently nucleate actin assembly both in vitro and in vivo. This discovery was unanticipated because earlier studies had shown that purified formins are sufficient to catalyze actin polymerization in vitro. Graziano, working in collaboration with the labs of Laurent Blanchoin and Isabelle Sagot, investigated the mechanism and function of a formin-binding protein called Bud6 and found that it elevates formin nucleation activity by 5-10 fold. Further, they showed that this activity of Bud6 is critical in vivo for maintaining normal levels of actin cable assembly and polarized cell growth (see figure).

Earlier work from the Goode lab had shown that Bud6 enhances formin-mediated actin assembly in vitro (Moseley et al., 2004), but had left open the question of whether Bud6 stimulates the nucleation or elongation phase of filament growth (an important mechanistic distinction), and whether the activities of Bud6 are important in vivo. Graziano and collaborators dissected Bud6 mechanism by: (a) generating mutations in Bud6 that separately disrupt its interactions with formins (bu6-35) and actin monomers (bud6-8), (b) using TIRF (total internal reflection fluorescence) microscopy to visualize the effects of Bud6 and formins on individual actin filaments polymerizing in real time, and (c) performing a genetic analysis of bud6 alleles. They made three important observations. First, Bud6 enhances the nucleation rather than elongation phase of actin assembly, in sharp contrast to another formin ligand, profilin, that enhances elongation. Second, this activity of Bud6 requires its direct interactions with both the formin and actin monomers, suggesting that Bud6 recruits monomers to the formin to help assemble an actin ‘seed’. Third, genetic perturbation of these activities of Bud6 results in reduced levels of actin cable formation in vivo, in turn causing defects in polarized secretion and cell growth.

Until now, formins were thought to nucleate actin assembly by themselves, which is mechanistically distinct from the Arp2/3 complex (another major actin nucleator). Efficient nucleation by Arp2/3 requires the addition of a nucleation-promoting factor (NPF) such as WASp or WAVE, which recruits actin monomers. Graziano et al. reveal that some formins are similar to Arp2/3 in that they too require an NPF for robust nucleation. Their findings also uncover unanticipated mechanistic parallels between the two systems, since in each case nucleation requires both an actin filament end-capping component (formin or Arp2/3) and an actin monomer-recruiting factor (Bud6 or WASp).

How well is this formin-NPF mechanism conserved? Clues to this question have recently emerged from other studies. A paper published last year in The Journal of Cell Biology by the Goode lab, working in collaboration with the labs of Niko Grigorieff (Brandeis) and Gregg Gundersen (Columbia), implicates the human tumor suppressor protein Adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) in functioning as a formin NPF (Okada et al., 2010). Another study published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by the labs of Mike Eck (Dana Farber Cancer Institute), Margot Quinlan (UCLA), and Avital Rodal (Brandeis), suggests that Spire, which is conserved in mammals and flies, may serve as a formin NPF (Vizcarra et al., 2011). Bud6, Spire, and APC all bind multiple actin monomers and interact with the C-terminus of formins to enhance actin assembly, suggesting that they may have related mechanisms and perform functionally analogous roles.

Although the requirement of NPFs increases the complexity of the formin mechanism, it offers an explanation for how cells simultaneously overcome two prominent barriers to actin assembly found in vivo – actin monomer binding proteins (e.g. profilin) that suppress formation of an actin nucleus and capping proteins that terminate growth by associating with the growing end of the filament. NPFs can facilitate nucleation by recruiting actin monomers in the presence of profilin, and formins protect growing ends of filaments from capping proteins. Future work will focus on identifying new formin-NFP pairs, defining the cellular processes with which they are associated, and distinguishing the underlying mechanistic differences among each set.

Who pulls the strings in actin cable assembly?

When large structures are built inside of cells, how are their dimensions determined? Are cues received that tell the structure to keep growing, or to slow down, or to stop growing altogether? A recent study published in Developmental Cell by a team led by Molecular and Cell Biology PhD student Melissa Chesarone-Cataldo and Professor of Biology Bruce Goode begins to address these questions by focusing on cytoskeletal structures called yeast actin cables.

Actin cables serve as essential railways for myosin-dependent transport of vesicles, organelles and other cargo, required for yeast cells to grow asymmetrically and produce a daughter cell. Cables are assembled at one end of the mother cell and run the length of the entire cell, but no longer, or else they would hit the back of the cell, buckle and misdirect transport. So how does an actin cable know how long to grow? How are other properties of the cable, such as its thickness and mechanical rigidity determined, and how important are these properties for cable function in vivo?

Actin cables are assembled at the bud neck by the formin protein Bnr1, and rapidly extend into the mother cell at a rate of 0.5-1 µm/s. At this speed, the tip of the actin cable reaches the back end of the cell in about 5-10 seconds. Each cable consists of many shorter overlapping pieces (individual actin filaments) that are stitched or cross-linked together to form a single cable, and cables continuously stream out of the bud neck due to the robust actin assembly activity of Bnr1. Chesarone-Cataldo et al. asked the question, “what mechanism prevents the cables from colliding with the back of the cell and overgrowing?” In doing so, they identified a novel actin cable ‘length sensing’ feedback loop, dependent on the myosin-passenger protein Smy1.

Using live-cell imaging, they showed that Smy1 molecules are transported by myosin from the mother cell to the bud neck, where they pause to interact with the formin Bnr1. Purified Smy1 attenuated Bnr1 activity by slowing down the rate of actin filament elongation. When the SMY1 gene was deleted, cables grew too long, hit the rear of the cell and buckled (see image, right). In addition, the mutant cables abnormally fluctuated in thickness and were kinked, impairing transport of myosin and its cargoes.

The authors propose that a negative feedback loop controls actin cable length. In their model, the cargo (Smy1 in this case) communicates with the machinery that is making the cable (the formin Bnr1), as a means of sensing ‘railway’ length. The longer the railway grows, the more passengers it picks up, and the more transient inhibitory pulses the formin receives. As such, longer cables are selectively attenuated, while shorter cables are allowed to grow rapidly. This negative feedback loop allows yeast cells to tailor actin cable length to the dimensions of the cell and to the needs of its myosin-based transport system.

Current work in the Goode lab is aimed at testing many of the mechanistic predictions of the model above and understanding how Smy1 functions in coordination with other known regulators of Bnr1, all simultaneously present in a cell, to produce actin cables with proper architecture and function. In addition, experiments are underway to find out whether related mechanisms are used to control formins in mammalian cells and to understand the physiological consequences of disrupting those mechanisms.

Chesarone-Cataldo M, Guérin C, Yu JH, Wedlich-Söldner R, Blanchoin L, Goode BL. The Myosin passenger protein Smy1 controls actin cable structure and dynamics by acting as a formin damper. Dev Cell. 2011 Aug 16;21(2):217-30.