Halorhodopsin is a light-driven chloride ion pump. Chloride ion is bound in the Schiff base region of the retinal chromophore, and unidirectional chloride transport is probably enforced by the specific hydrogen-bonding interaction with the protonated Schiff base and internal water molecules. In this article, we study hydrogen-bonding alterations of the Schiff base and water molecules in halorhodopsin of Natronobacterium pharaonis (pHR) by assigning their N-D and O-D stretching vibrations in D(2)O, respectively. Highly accurate low-temperature Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy revealed that hydrogen bonds of the Schiff base and water molecules are weak in the unphotolyzed state, whereas they are strengthened upon retinal photoisomerization. Halide dependence of the stretching vibrations enabled us to conclude that the Schiff base forms a direct hydrogen bond with Cl(-) only in the K intermediate. Hydrogen bond of the Schiff base is further strengthened in the L(1) intermediate, whereas the halide dependence revealed that the acceptor is not Cl(-), but presumably a water molecule. Thus, it is concluded that the hydrogen-bonding interaction between the Schiff base and Cl(-) is not a driving force of the motion of Cl(-). Rather, the removal of its hydrogen bonds with the Schiff base and water(s) makes the environment around Cl(-) less polar in the L(1) intermediate, which presumably drives the motion of Cl(-) from its binding site to the cytoplasmic domain.

c-Fos is regulated by phosphorylation and multiple turnover mechanisms. We found that c-Fos was ubiquitylated in the cytoplasm during IL-6/gp130 stimulation under MEK inhibition and sought the mechanisms involved in the regulation. We show that sustained ERK5 activity and the E3 ligase UBR1 regulate the stability and subcellular localization of c-Fos. UBR1, rapidly induced by STAT3, interacts with and ubiquitylates c-Fos in the cytoplasm for its accelerated degradation. ERK5 inhibits the nuclear export of c-Fos by phosphorylating Thr232 in the c-Fos NES(221-233) and disrupts the interaction of c-Fos with UBR1 by phosphorylating Ser32. Moreover, UBR1 depletion in HeLa cells, which constitutively express UBR1 at a high level, enhances both c-Fos expression and cell growth, whereas ERK5 depletion reduces both of them. Interestingly, an NES mutant of c-Fos, but not wild-type, substitutes ERK5 activity for HeLa cell proliferation. Thus, this spatiotemporal regulation of c-Fos by ERK5 and UBR1 is critical for the regulation of c-Fos/AP-1.

One of the major factors involved in the prognosis of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) patients is metastasis. Recent progress in cancer stem-like cell/cancer-initiating cell (CSC/CIC) research indicates that CSCs are related to metastasis. Aldehyde dehydrogenase 1 - (ALDH1) and SRY-related HMG-box gene 2 (SOX2) have recently been shown to be putative CSC markers for several human malignancies. The aim of this study was to determine the association of ALDH1 and SOX2 expression in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) with lymph node metastasis. Immunohistochemical staining of ALDH1, SOX2 and Ki67 was performed in 80 OSCC tissues. High expression rates of ALDH1 (2%-40%) were found to be related to lymph node metastasis (P = 0.0017). Interestingly, we found that SOX2 staining could be classified into two patterns: (i) peripheral staining pattern; and (ii) diffuse staining pattern. The diffuse staining pattern showed a significant correlation with lymph node metastasis (P < 0.001). No correlation was found between Ki67 staining and lymph node metastasis (P = 0.4724). The ALDH1 positive staining rates in metastatic lymph nodes were higher than that in corresponding primary OSCC tissues. These results indicate that high expression rates of ALDH1 and SOX2 diffuse staining patterns might be novel prediction markers for OSCC lymph node metastasis.

Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) is activated by the IL-6 family of cytokines and growth factors. STAT3 requires phosphorylation on Ser-727, in addition to tyrosine phosphorylation on Tyr-705, to be transcriptionally active. In IL-6 signaling, the two major pathways that derive from the YXXQ and the YSTV motifs of gp130 cause Ser-727 phosphorylation. Here, we show that TGF-␤-activated kinase 1 (TAK1) interacts with STAT3, that the TAK1-Nemo-like kinase (NLK) pathway is efficiently activated by IL-6 through the YXXQ motif, and that this is the YXXQ-mediated H7-sensitive pathway that leads to STAT3 Ser-727 phosphorylation. Because NLK was recently shown to interact with STAT3, we explored the role of STAT3 in activating this pathway. Depletion of STAT3 diminished the IL-6-induced NLK activation by >80% without inhibiting IL-6-induced TAK1 activation or its nuclear entry. We found that STAT3 functioned as a scaffold for TAK1 and NLK in vivo through a region in its carboxyl terminus. Furthermore, the expression of the STAT3 534 -770 region in the nuclei of STAT3-knockdown cells enhanced the IL-6-induced NLK activation in a dose-dependent manner but not the TGF␤-induced NLK activation. TGF␤ did not cause STAT3 Ser-727 phosphorylation, even when the carboxyl region of STAT3 was expressed in the nuclei. Together, these results indicate that STAT3 enhances the efficiency of its own Ser-727 phosphorylation by acting as a scaffold for the TAK1-NLK kinases, specifically in the YXXQ motif-derived pathway.gp130 ͉ YXXQ motif ͉ signaling specificity T he signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) family plays pivotal roles in a variety of systems and in development, in response to cytokines and growth factors. STAT family members are activated in the cytoplasm by tyrosine phosphorylation, form dimers, and enter the nucleus, where they act as DNA-binding transcription factors (1). Of the seven known STATs, STAT1, 3, 5A, 5B, and 6 are phosphorylated at one or two serine residues in their carboxyl-terminal transactivation domain (1, 2) and at a critical tyrosine. The serine phosphorylation enhances the transcriptional activity in the case of STAT1 (3), STAT3 (3, 4), and STAT6 (5). STAT3 can be activated by a variety of cytokines, including the IL-6 family, by using gp130 as a common receptor subunit (6), Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) and erythropoietin, and growth factors, EGF, platelet-derived growth factor, and hepatocyte growth factor, and cytoplasmic tyrosine kinases, including Src and v-Eyk (reviewed in ref. 7). IL-6 uses STAT3 in its major signaling pathway and concomitantly activates the Ras͞Raf͞ ERK and PI3-kinase pathways (7). IL-6, therefore, activates multiple genes, including acute-phase reactants, and the junB, tis11, stat3, c-myc, and c-fos genes, mostly through STAT3 (8-14). In the IL-6 receptor system, the tyrosine-phosphorylated YXXQ motif of gp130 is critical for recruiting STAT3 for subsequent phosphorylation at Tyr-705 by the associated Jak kinases (15). I...