Cullin-3 targets cyclin E for ubiquitination and controls S phase in mammalian cells.

Cyclin E is an unstable protein that is degraded in a ubiquitin- and proteasome- dependent pathway. Two factors stimulate cyclin E ubiquitination in vivo: when it is free of its CDK partner, and when it is phosphorylated on threonine 380. We pursued the first of these pathways by using a ...
two-hybrid screen to identify proteins that could bind only to free cyclin E. This resulted in the isolation of human Cul-3, a member of the cullin family of E3 ubiquitin-protein ligases. We found that Cul-3 was bound to cyclin E but not to cyclin E-Cdk2 complexes in mammalian cells, and that overexpression of Cul-3 increased ubiquitination of cyclin E but not other cyclins. Conversely, deletion of the Cul-3 gene in mice caused increased accumulation of cyclin E protein, and had cell-type-specific effects on S-phase regulation. In the extraembryonic ectoderm, in which cells undergo a standard mitotic cycle, there was a greatly increased number of cells in S phase. In the trophectoderm, in which cells go through endocycles, there was a block to entry into S phase. The SCF pathway, which targets cyclins for ubiquitination on the basis of their phosphorylation state, and the Cul-3 pathway, which selects cyclin E for ubiquitination on the basis of its assembly into CDK complexes, may be complementary ways to control cyclin abundance.
Mesh Terms:
3T3 Cells, Animals, Blastocyst, Cell Cycle Proteins, Cloning, Molecular, Cullin Proteins, Cyclin E, Embryo, Mammalian, Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental, Humans, Mice, Mice, Inbred C57BL, Mice, Knockout, Models, Genetic, Phenotype, Protein Binding, S Phase, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Signal Transduction, Tissue Distribution, Tumor Cells, Cultured, Ubiquitins
Genes Dev.
Date: Sep. 15, 1999
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