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Acetylation is essential for nuclear heme oxygenase-1-enhanced tumor growth and invasiveness

Oncogene volume 36, pages 6805–6814 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

Overexpression of heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), an endoplasmic reticulum-anchored enzyme, is observed in many cancers. HO-1 nuclear translocation has been shown to correlate with progression of several cancers. We recently reported that HO-1 is susceptible to intramembrane proteolysis and translocates to the nucleus to promote cancer growth and invasiveness without depending on its enzymatic activity. In the present study, we show that the HO-1 lacking C-terminal transmembrane segment (t-HO-1) was susceptible to acetylation by p300 and CREB-binding protein (CBP) histone acetyltransferase in the nucleus. Mass spectrometry analysis of HO-1 isolated from human embryonic kidney cells 293T (HEK293T) cells overexpressing CBP and t-HO-1 revealed two acetylation sites located at K243 and K256. Mutation of both lysine residues to arginine (R) abolished t-HO-1-enhanced tumor cell growth, migration and invasion. However, mutation of the lysine residues to glutamine (Q), a mimic of acetylated lysine, had no significant effect on t-HO-1-mediated tumorigenicity. Mechanistic studies demonstrated that transcriptional factor JunD interacted with wild-type (WT) t-HO-1 and mutant carrying K243/256Q but not K243/256 R mutation. Moreover, JunD-induced AP-1 transcriptional activity was significantly enhanced by coexpression with WT and acetylation-mimic but not acetylation-defective t-HO-1. Consistent with the in vitro observations, the implication of K243/256 acetylation in t-HO-1-enhanced tumorigenicity was also demonstrated in xenograft models. Immunohistochemistry performed with a specific antibody against acetyl-HO-1 showed the positive acetyl-HO-1 nuclear staining in human lung cancer tissues but not in the corresponding non-tumor tissues, supporting its clinical significance. Collectively, our findings highlight the importance of nuclear HO-1 post-translational modification in the induction of cancer progression.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology Taiwan (MOST 103-2320-B-001-013-MY3). We thank IBMS proteomics core for the LC-MS analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

    F-F Hsu, M-T Chiang, F-A Li & L-Y Chau

  2. Cancer Center, Shuang Ho Hospital, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan

    C-T Yeh & W-H Lee

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Correspondence to L-Y Chau.

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Hsu, FF., Chiang, MT., Li, FA. et al. Acetylation is essential for nuclear heme oxygenase-1-enhanced tumor growth and invasiveness. Oncogene 36, 6805–6814 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/onc.2017.294

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