TATA-Binding Protein-Like Protein (TLP/TRF2/TLF) Negatively Regulates Cell Cycle Progression and Is Required for the Stress-Mediated G₂ Checkpoint

Abstract

The TATA-binding protein (TBP) is a universal transcription factor required for all of the eukaryotic RNA polymerases. In addition to TBP, metazoans commonly express a distantly TBP-related protein referred to as TBP-like protein (TLP/TRF2/TLF). Although the function of TLP in transcriptional regulation is not clear, it is known that TLP is required for embryogenesis and spermiogenesis. In the present study, we investigated the cellular functions of TLP by using TLP knockout chicken DT40 cells. TLP was found to be dispensable for cell growth. Unexpectedly, TLP-null cells exhibited a 20% elevated cell cycle progression rate that was attributed to shortening of the G₂ phase. This indicates that TLP functions as a negative regulator of cell growth. Moreover, we found that TLP mainly existed in the cytoplasm and was translocated to the nucleus restrictedly at the G₂ phase. Ectopic expression of nuclear localization signal-carrying TLP resulted in an increase (1.5-fold) in the proportion of cells remaining in the G₂/M phase and apoptotic state. Notably, TLP-null cells showed an insufficient G₂ checkpoint when the cells were exposed to stresses such as UV light and methyl methanesulfonate, and the population of apoptotic cells after stresses decreased to 40%. These phenomena in G₂ checkpoint regulation are suggested to be p53 independent because p53 does not function in DT40 cells. Moreover, TLP was transiently translocated to the nucleus shortly (15 min) after stress treatment. The expression of several stress response and cell cycle regulatory genes drifted in a both TLP- and stress-dependent manner. Nucleus-translocating TLP is therefore thought to work by checking cell integrity through its transcription regulatory ability. TLP is considered to be a signal-transducing transcription factor in cell cycle regulation and stress response.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank S. Takeda for the gift of DT40 cells and A. Dutta, M. Miura, and H. Abe for reading the manuscript. We also thank T. Aoki, T. Ohbayashi, and T. Wakamatsu for valuable discussions throughout this study.

Part of this work was supported by the CREST Japan Science and Technology Corporation.