Department of Immunology, Hokkaido University, Graduate School of Medicine, Sapporo 060-8638, Japan.
Department of Biochemistry, Hokkaido University, Graduate School of Medicine, Sapporo 060-8638, Japan.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Jun 13;120(24):e2218955120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2218955120. Epub 2023 Jun 6.
Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I and II molecules play critical roles in the activation and regulation of adaptive immunity through antigen presentation to CD8+ and CD4+ T cells, respectively. Strict regulation of MHC expression is critical for proper immune responses. CIITA (MHC class II transactivator), an NLR (nucleotide-binding domain, leucine-rich-repeat containing) protein, is a master regulator of MHC class II (MHC-II) gene transcription. Although it has been known that CIITA activity is regulated at the transcriptional and protein levels, the mechanism to determine CIITA protein level has not been elucidated. Here, we show that FBXO11 is a bona fide E3 ligase of CIITA and regulates CIITA protein level through ubiquitination-mediated degradation. A nonbiased proteomic approach for CIITA-binding protein identified FBXO11, a member of the Skp1-Cullin-1-F-box E3 ligase complex, as a binding partner of CIITA but not MHC class I transactivator, NLRC5. The cycloheximide chase assay showed that the half-life of CIITA is mainly regulated by FBXO11 via the ubiquitin-proteasome system. The expression of FBXO11 led to the reduced MHC-II at the promoter activity level, transcriptional level, and surface expression level through downregulation of CIITA. Moreover, human and mouse -deficient cells display increased levels of MHC-II and related genes. In normal and cancer tissues, expression level is negatively correlated with MHC-II. Interestingly, the expression of , along with , is associated with prognosis of cancer patients. Therefore, FBXO11 is a critical regulator to determine the level of MHC-II, and its expression may serve as a biomarker for cancer.
主要组织相容性复合体(MHC)I 类和 II 类分子分别通过抗原呈递至 CD8+和 CD4+T 细胞,在适应性免疫的激活和调节中发挥关键作用。MHC 表达的严格调控对于适当的免疫反应至关重要。CIITA(MHC II 类转录激活物),一种 NLR(核苷酸结合域,富含亮氨酸重复序列)蛋白,是 MHC II 类(MHC-II)基因转录的主要调节剂。虽然已经知道 CIITA 活性在转录和蛋白质水平受到调节,但确定 CIITA 蛋白水平的机制尚未阐明。在这里,我们表明 FBXO11 是 CIITA 的真正 E3 连接酶,并通过泛素化介导的降解来调节 CIITA 蛋白水平。用于 CIITA 结合蛋白的无偏蛋白质组学方法鉴定了 FBXO11,一种 Skp1-Cullin-1-F-box E3 连接酶复合物的成员,作为 CIITA 而不是 MHC I 转录激活物 NLRC5 的结合伴侣。环己酰亚胺追踪实验表明,CIITA 的半衰期主要通过 FBXO11 通过泛素-蛋白酶体系统进行调节。FBXO11 的表达通过下调 CIITA 导致 MHC-II 在启动子活性水平、转录水平和表面表达水平上降低。此外,人和小鼠缺陷细胞显示 MHC-II 和相关基因水平升高。在正常和癌症组织中,表达水平与 MHC-II 呈负相关。有趣的是,表达与预后相关。因此,FBXO11 是决定 MHC-II 水平的关键调节剂,其表达可作为癌症的生物标志物。