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Structure of cohesin subcomplex pinpoints direct shugoshin-Wapl antagonism in centromeric cohesion

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology volume 21, pages 864–870 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

Orderly termination of sister-chromatid cohesion during mitosis is critical for accurate chromosome segregation. During prophase, mitotic kinases phosphorylate cohesin and its protector sororin, triggering Wapl-dependent cohesin release from chromosome arms. The shugoshin (Sgo1)–PP2A complex protects centromeric cohesin until its cleavage by separase at anaphase onset. Here, we report the crystal structure of a human cohesin subcomplex comprising SA2 and Scc1. Multiple HEAT repeats of SA2 form a dragon-shaped structure. Scc1 makes extensive contacts with SA2, with one binding hotspot. Sgo1 and Wapl compete for binding to a conserved site on SA2–Scc1. At this site, mutations of SA2 residues that disrupt Wapl binding bypass the Sgo1 requirement in cohesion protection. Thus, in addition to recruiting PP2A to dephosphorylate cohesin and sororin, Sgo1 physically shields cohesin from Wapl. This unexpected, direct antagonism between Sgo1 and Wapl augments centromeric cohesion protection.

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Figure 1: Structure and binding interface of human SA2–Scc1.
Figure 2: Identification of a binding hotspot between SA2 and Scc1.
Figure 3: A conserved, functional Sgo1-binding site of SA2–Scc1.
Figure 4: Competition between Wapl and Sgo1 for cohesin binding.
Figure 5: Sgo1 prevents Wapl from accessing a functional site on cohesin.

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Acknowledgements

We thank C. Brautigam for assistance with ITC. Use of Argonne National Laboratory Structural Biology Center beamlines at the Advanced Photon Source was supported by the US Department of Energy under contract DE-AC02-06CH11357. H.Y. is supported as an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. This work is supported by grants from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (RP110465-P3 to H.Y.) and the Welch Foundation (I-1441 to H.Y.).

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Author notes

  1. Kodai Hara

    Present address: Present address: Department of Physical Biochemistry, School of Pharmaceutical Science, University of Shizuoka, Shizuoka, Japan.,

  2. Kodai Hara and Ge Zheng: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pharmacology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, USA.,

    Kodai Hara, Ge Zheng, Qianhui Qu, Hong Liu, Zhuqing Ouyang & Hongtao Yu

  2. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, USA

    Hong Liu & Hongtao Yu

  3. Department of Biophysics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, USA

    Zhe Chen & Diana R Tomchick

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Contributions

K.H. crystallized SA2–Scc1 and determined its structure with the help of Z.C. and D.R.T. and performed the in vitro binding assays with SA2 and Scc1 mutants. G.Z. performed the functional cellular assays. Q.Q. performed the cohesin binding assay that showed competition between Sgo1 and Wapl and the in vitro binding assay between SA2–Scc1 and Wapl. Z.O. first observed competition between Sgo1 and Wapl in cohesin binding. H.L. performed the metaphase spread assay of sororin 9A–expressing cells depleted of Sgo1. H.Y. supervised the project and wrote the paper with input from all authors.

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Correspondence to Hongtao Yu.

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Integrated supplementary information

Supplementary Figure 1 Mutational analysis of the SA2-Scc1 interaction in vitro and in human cells.

(a) Autoradiograph (top) and Coomassie stained gel (bottom) of 35S-labeled Myc-SA2 proteins (input) and the same proteins bound to GST or GST-Scc1 beads. WT, wild type. (b) Quantification of the in vitro binding assays in a. The binding intensities were normalized to the amount of input for each SA2 protein. Error bars, s.d. (n = 3, independent experiments). The Y331A, Y479A, K1009E L1010A mutants were tested twice. Only the means were shown for these samples. (c) Autoradiograph (top) and Coomassie stained gel (bottom) of 35S-labeled Scc1-Myc proteins (input) and the same proteins bound to GST or GST-SA2 beads. WT, wild type. (d) Quantification of the in vitro binding assays in c. The binding intensities were normalized to the amount of input for each Scc1 protein. Error bars, s.d. (n = 3, independent experiments). (e) Anti-Myc or anti-GFP immunoblots of lysates and anti-Myc IP of HeLa cells co-transfected with plasmids encoding GFP-SA2 and the indicated Myc-Scc1 proteins. WT, wild type.

Supplementary Figure 2 Identification of a Sgo1-binding site on SA2–Scc1.

(a,b) Quantification of normalized intensities of the indicated 35S-labeled SA2–Scc1 proteins bound to beads coupled to phospho-T346 Sgo1 peptides. WT, wild type. Error bars, s.d. (n = 3, independent experiments). (c) Anti-Myc, anti-GFP, and anti-Sgo1 blots of lgG and anti-GFP IP from GFP-Sgo1-expressing HeLa cells co-transfected with Scc1-Myc and the indicated Myc-SA2 plasmids. WT, wild type. (d) Anti-Myc, anti-SA2, and anti-tubulin blots of lysates of HeLa cells transfected with the indicated siRNAs and plasmids. WT, wild type. (e) Quantification of mitotic indices (defined as MPM2-positive, 4N cells) of cells in d. Error bars, s.d. (n = 7, independent experiments).

Supplementary Figure 3 The conserved FVHRYRD motif of SA2 is not required for cohesin loading in human cells.

(a) Cartoon diagram of the structure of human SA2–Scc1, with SA2 colored blue and Scc1 colored pink. The conserved SA2–Scc1 regions implicated in binding the cohesin loader Scc2–Scc4 are colored yellow. The MES molecule bound near the SA2–Scc1 interface is shown in sticks. The chemical structure of MES is shown in the lower right corner. (b) A zoomed-in view of the MES-binding site, with the kicked OMIT map of electron density around MES shown at a contour level of 3σ. (c) DAPI (blue in merge), anti-GFP (red in merge), and anti-tubulin (green in merge) staining of telophase HeLa cells transfected with the indicated GFP-SA2 plasmids and siRNAs. WT, wild type. Scale bar, 10 μm. (d) Quantification of the anti-GFP staining intensities of cells in c. Each dot in the graph represents a single cell (Mock, n = 12; Vector, n = 22; WT, n = 48; Y297A, n = 18; R298E, n = 46; D793K, n = 40). The horizontal bars indicate the means.

Supplementary Figure 4 Identification of a Wapl-binding site on SA2–Scc1.

(a) Anti-Wapl and anti-tubulin blots of lysates of HeLa cells transfected with the indicated siRNAs with or without increasing amounts of the indicated GFP-Wapl plasmids. WT, wild type. The positions of the endogenous and GFP-Wapl are labeled. (b) Quantification of mitotic indices (defined as MPM2-positive, 4N cells) of cells in a. Error bars, range (n = 2, independent experiments). (c) Autoradiograph (top) and Coomassie stained gel (bottom) of 35S-labeled Myc-SA2–Scc1 proteins (input) and the same proteins bound to beads containing GST or increasing amounts of GST-Wapl-M. WT, wild type. (d) Quantification of the in vitro binding assays in c. The binding intensities were normalized to the amount of each input. Error bars, range (n = 2, independent experiments). The K290E and D326K mutants were only tested once.

Supplementary Figure 5 Expression of Wapl binding–deficient SA2 mutants bypasses Sgo1 requirement in cohesion protection and rescues cohesion fatigue.

(a) Anti-SA2, anti-Myc, and anti-tubulin blots of lysates of HeLa cells transfected with the indicated siRNA and plasmids. WT, wild type. (b) Four major types (I-IV) of metaphase spreads of cells in a, stained with DAPI (blue) and the kinetochore marker CREST (red). Selected sister chromatids were magnified and shown in insets. Scale bar, 5 μm. (c) Quantification of the percentage of cells in a with type III and IV chromosome morphologies as in b. Error bars, range (n = 2, independent experiments). The K330E mutant was tested only once. (d) Quantification of the percentages of mitotic HeLa cells (transfected with the indicated Myc-SA2 plasmids, arrested in nocodazole, and released into medium containing MG132 for 2 hrs) that had types III/IV chromosome morphology. WT, wild type. Error bars, s.d. for mock, WT, D326K (n = 3, independent experiments); range for K330E and Y331A (n = 2, independent experiments).

Supplementary Figure 6 Uncropped original images of gels, autoradiographs, and blots presented in the main figures of this study.

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Hara, K., Zheng, G., Qu, Q. et al. Structure of cohesin subcomplex pinpoints direct shugoshin-Wapl antagonism in centromeric cohesion. Nat Struct Mol Biol 21, 864–870 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb.2880

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