Posttranslational protein modification by the ubiquitin-like SUMO protein is critical to eukaryotic cell regulation, but much remains unknown regarding its operation and substrates. Here we report that specific mutations in the Saccharomyces cerevisiae Ulp1 SUMO protease, including its coiled-coil (CC) domain, lead to the accumulation of distinct sumoylated proteins in vivo. A prominent ϳ50-kDa sumoylated protein accumulates in a Ulp1 CC mutant. The protein was identified as Scs2, an endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane protein that regulates phosphatidylinositol synthesis and lipid trafficking. Mutation of lysine 180 of Scs2 abolishes its sumoylation. Notably, impairment of either cellular sumoylation or cellular desumoylation mechanisms inhibits cell growth in the absence of inositol and exacerbates the inositol auxotrophy caused by deletion of SCS2. Mutants lacking the Ulp2 SUMO protease are the most severely affected, and this defect was traced to the mutants' impaired ability to induce transcription of INO1, which encodes the rate-limiting enzyme of inositol biosynthesis. Conversely, inositol starvation induces a striking change in the profiles of total cellular SUMO conjugates. These results provide the first evidence of cross-regulation between the SUMO and inositol pathways, including the sumoylation of an ER membrane protein central to phospholipid synthesis and phosphoinositide signaling.
The SUMO (small ubiquitin-related modifier) proteins are a family of protein modifiers conserved from the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to humans. Modification of a protein by SUMO (sumoylation) has a variety of outcomes, including alterations of its localization, stability, or interaction with other molecules (18). Increasingly, SUMO is being identified as a key coordinator of protein interaction networks, and disruption to sumoylation has been linked to a variety of disorders, including many cancers and neurodegenerative diseases (25, 41).The yeast S. cerevisiae expresses a single SUMO protein called Smt3. Smt3 is synthesized as an inactive precursor; the three C-terminal residues are removed to yield mature Smt3, which terminates with a pair of Gly residues. Following precursor cleavage, Smt3 enters an enzymatic cascade involving a series of enzymes designated E1, E2, and E3. The heterodimeric E1-activating enzyme Uba2-Aos1 first forms a high-energy thioester bond with the C terminus of Smt3 (22). Activated Smt3 is then transferred to the active-site cysteine of the E2 enzyme Ubc9 (20), from which it is then conjugated to a lysine side chain in a substrate (21). Smt3-substrate conjugation is usually assisted by one of several E3 protein ligases (21, 50). Additional Smt3 proteins can be appended to previously conjugated Smt3 molecules, generating a polySUMO chain.Sumoylation is reversible, and substrates can be desumoylated by specific proteases, termed ubiquitin-like protein-specific proteases (ULPs) (10). S. cerevisiae has two SUMO proteases, Ulp1 and Ulp2, which cleave Smt3 from distinct sets of substrates (29,31...