Degradation of c-Fos by the 26S proteasome is accelerated by c-Jun and multiple protein kinases.

c-Fos is associated with c-Jun to increase the transcription of a number of target genes and is a nuclear proto-oncoprotein with a very short half-life. This instability of c-Fos may be important in regulation of the normal cell cycle. Here we report a mechanism for degradation of c-Fos. Coexpression of c-Fos and c-Jun in HeLa cells caused marked increase in the instability of c-Fos, whereas v-Fos, the retroviral counterpart of c-Fos, was stable irrespective of the coexpression of c-Jun. Interestingly, deletion of the C-terminal PEST region of c-Fos, which is altered in v-Fos by a frameshift mutation, greatly enhanced its stability, with loss of the effect of c-Jun on its stability. c-Fos synthesized in vitro was degraded by the 26S proteasome in a ubiquitin-dependent fashion. Simple association with c-Jun had no effect on the degradation of c-Fos, but the additions of three protein kinases, mitogen-activated protein kinase, casein kinase II, and CDC2 kinase, resulted in marked acceleration of its degradation by the proteasome-ubiquitin system, though only in the presence of c-Jun. In contrast, v-Fos and c-Fos with a truncated PEST motif were not degraded, suggesting that they escaped from down-regulation by breakdown. These findings indicate a new oncogenic pathway induced by acquisition of intracellular stability of a cell cycle modulatory factor.