During mammalian sex determination, SOX9 is translocated into the nuclei of Sertoli cells within the developing XY gonad. The N-terminal nuclear localization signal (NLS) is contained within a SOX consensus calmodulin (CaM) binding region, thereby implicating CaM in nuclear import of SOX9. By fluorescence spectroscopy and glutaraldehyde cross-linking, we show that the SOX9 HMG domain and CaM interact in vitro. The formation of a SOX9⅐CaM binary complex is calcium-dependent and is accompanied by a conformational change in SOX9. A CaM antagonist, calmidazolium chloride (CDZ), was observed to block CaM recognition of SOX9 in vitro and inhibit both nuclear import and consequent transcriptional activity of SOX9 in treated cells. The significance of the SOX9-CaM interaction was highlighted by analysis of a missense SOX9 mutation, A158T, identified from a XY female with campomelic dysplasia/ autosomal sex reversal (CD/SRA). This mutant binds importin  normally despite defective nuclear import. Fluorescence and quenching studies indicate that in the unbound state, the A158T mutant shows a similar conformation to that of the WT SOX9, but in the presence of CaM, the mutant undergoes unusual conformational changes. Furthermore, SOX9-mediated transcriptional activation by cells expressing the A158T mutant is more sensitive to CDZ than cells expressing WT SOX9. These results suggest first that CaM is involved in the nuclear transport of SOX9 in a process likely to involve direct interaction and second, that CD/SRA can arise, at least in part, from a defect in CaM recognition, ultimately leading to reduced ability of SOX9 to activate transcription of cartilage and testes-forming genes.
SOX1 (Sry-related HMG box) proteins are a large family of transcription factors that play critical roles in cell fate, differentiation, and development and show diverse, overlapping expression profiles (1, 2). SOX proteins activate the transcription of target genes by binding to DNA in a sequence-specific manner through their HMG box and by interacting with specific partner proteins (1, 2).SOX9, an early embryonically expressed gene, has a role in binding to and regulating a number of genes in the chondrogenesis pathway (3-5) and testis formation pathway (6). The influence of SOX9 upon these pathways is evident where mutations in SOX9 result in the disease campomelic dysplasia/ autosomal sex reversal (CD/SRA), a severe bone malformation syndrome in which most XY individuals show male-to-female sex reversal (7,8). Unlike frameshift and nonsense mutations that occur throughout the open reading frame of human SOX9, all known missense point mutations in SOX9 that cause CD have been localized at the HMG box (9).During early human and mouse embryogenesis, SOX9 is expressed in the cytoplasm of Sertoli cells in both sexes, but by gestational week 7, at the onset of SRY expression in male embryos, SOX9 moves into the nucleus (10, 11). Here, SOX9 activates the gene for mullerian inhibitory substance, which is required for the regression of the female re...