Sumoylation serves to control key cellular functions, but the regulation of SUMO E3 ligase activity is largely unknown. Here we show that the polycomb group protein Pc2 binds to and colocalizes with homeodomain interacting protein kinase 2 (HIPK2) and serves as a SUMO E3 ligase for this kinase. DNA damage-induced HIPK2 directly phosphorylates Pc2 at multiple sites, which in turn controls Pc2 sumoylation and intranuclear localization. Inducible phosphorylation of Pc2 at threonine 495 is required for its ability to increase HIPK2 sumoylation in response to DNA damage, thereby establishing an autoregulatory feedback loop between a SUMO substrate and its cognate E3 ligase. Sumoylation enhances the ability of HIPK2 to mediate transcriptional repression, thus providing a mechanistic link for DNA damage-induced transcriptional silencing.

Homeodomain interacting protein kinase 2 (HIPK2) is an evolutionary conserved serine/threonine kinase that regulates gene expression by phosphorylation of transcription factors and accessory components of the transcription machinery. HIPK2 is activated in response to DNA-damaging agents or morphogenic signals and accordingly HIPK2-guided gene expression programs trigger differentiation and development or alternatively apoptosis. The kinase contributes to the regulation of remarkably diverse pathways such as p53 activation or Wnt signaling. Here we discuss recent findings from biochemical and functional experiments that allow a deeper understanding of the pleiotropic effects mediated by HIPK2.

J. Neurochem. (2011) 119, 398–407. Abstract Huntington’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder caused by a CAG trinucleotide repeat expansion in the huntingtin gene. This expansion produces a mutant form of the huntingtin protein, which contains an elongated polyglutamine stretch at its amino‐terminus. Mutant huntingtin may adopt an aberrant, aggregation‐prone conformation predicted to start the pathogenic process leading to neuronal dysfunction and cell death. Thus, strategies reducing mutant huntingtin may lead to disease‐modifying therapies. We investigated the mechanisms and molecular targets regulating huntingtin degradation in a neuronal cell model. We first found that mutant and wild‐type huntingtin displayed strikingly diverse turn‐over kinetics and sensitivity to proteasome inhibition. Then, we show that autophagy induction led to accelerate degradation of mutant huntingtin aggregates. In our neuronal cell model, allosteric inhibition of mTORC1 by everolimus, a rapamycin analogue, did not induce autophagy or affect aggregate degradation. In contrast, this occurred in the presence of catalytic inhibitors of both mTOR complexes mTORC1 and mTORC2. Our data demonstrate the existence of an mTOR‐dependent but everolimus‐independent mechanism regulating autophagy and huntingtin‐aggregate degradation in cells of neuronal origin.

The serine/threonine kinase HIPK2 phosphorylates the p53 protein at Ser 46, thus promoting p53-dependent gene expression and subsequent apoptosis. Here, we show that DNA damaging chemotherapeutic drugs cause degradation of endogenous HIPK2 dependent on the presence of a functional p53 protein. Early induced p53 allows caspase-mediated cleavage of HIPK2 following aspartic acids 916 and 977. The resulting C-terminally truncated HIPK2 forms show an enhanced induction of the p53 response and cell death, thus allowing the rapid amplification of the p53-dependent apoptotic program during the initiation phase of apoptosis by a regulatory feed-forward loop. The active HIPK2 fragments are further degraded during the execution and termination phase of apoptosis, thus ensuring the occurrence of HIPK2 signaling only during the early phases of apoptosis induction.

The promyelocytic leukemia (PML) tumor suppressor protein, a central regulator of cell proliferation and apoptosis, is frequently fused to the retinoic acid receptora (RARa) in acute PML. Here we show the interaction of PML with another tumor suppressor protein, the serine/ threonine kinase homeodomain-interacting protein kinase (HIPK2). In response to DNA damage, HIPK2 phosphorylates PML at serines 8 and 38. Although HIPK2-mediated phosphorylation of PML occurs early during the DNA damage response, the oncogenic PML-RARa fusion protein is phosphorylated with significantly delayed kinetics. DNA damage or HIPK2 expression leads to the stabilization of PML and PML-RARa proteins. The N-terminal phosphorylation sites contribute to the DNA damage-induced PML SUMOylation and are required for the ability of PML to cooperate with HIPK2 for the induction of cell death.