Challenging muscle homeostasis uncovers novel chaperone interactions in Caenorhabditis elegans

Proteostasis and neurodegeneration: a closer look at autophagy in Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by the accumulation of misfolded amyloid-beta and tau proteins. Autophagy acts as a proteostasis process to remove protein clumps, although it progressively weakens with aging and AD, thus facilitating the accumulation of toxic proteins and causing neurodegeneration. This review examines the impact of impaired autophagy on the progression of AD disease pathology. Under normal circumstances, autophagy removes abnormal proteins and damaged organelles, but any dysfunction in this process can lead to the exacerbation of amyloid and tau pathology, particularly in AD. There is increasing attention to therapeutic tactics to revitalize autophagy, including reduced caloric intake, autophagy-stimulating drugs, and genetic therapy. However, the translation of these strategies into clinical practice faces several hurdles. In summary, this review integrates the understanding of the intricate role of autophagy dysfunction in Alzheimer's disease progression and reinforces the promising prospects of autophagy as a beneficial target for treatments to modify the course of Alzheimer's disease.

Organismal Roles of Hsp90

Heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) is a highly conserved molecular chaperone that assists in the maturation of many client proteins involved in cellular signal transduction. As a regulator of cellular signaling processes, it is vital for the maintenance of cellular proteostasis and adaptation to environmental stresses. Emerging research shows that Hsp90 function in an organism goes well beyond intracellular proteostasis. In metazoans, Hsp90, as an environmentally responsive chaperone, is involved in inter-tissue stress signaling responses that coordinate and safeguard cell nonautonomous proteostasis and organismal health. In this way, Hsp90 has the capacity to influence evolution and aging, and effect behavioral responses to facilitate tissue-defense systems that ensure organismal survival. In this review, I summarize the literature on the organismal roles of Hsp90 uncovered in multicellular organisms, from plants to invertebrates and mammals.

Beyond Chaperoning: UCS Proteins Emerge as Regulators of Myosin-Mediated Cellular Processes

The UCS (UNC-45/CRO1/She4p) family of proteins has emerged as chaperones specific for the folding, assembly, and function of myosin. UCS proteins participate in various myosin-dependent cellular processes including myofibril organization and muscle functions, cell differentiation, striated muscle development, cytokinesis, and endocytosis. Mutations in the genes that code for UCS proteins cause serious defects in myosin-dependent cellular processes. UCS proteins that contain an N-terminal tetratricopeptide repeat (TPR) domain are called UNC-45. Vertebrates usually possess two variants of UNC-45, the ubiquitous general-cell UNC-45 (UNC-45A) and the striated muscle UNC-45 (UNC-45B), which is exclusively expressed in skeletal and cardiac muscles. Except for the TPR domain in UNC-45, UCS proteins comprise of several irregular armadillo (ARM) repeats that are organized into a central domain, a neck region, and the canonical C-terminal UCS domain that functions as the chaperoning module. With or without TPR, UCS proteins form linear oligomers that serve as scaffolds that mediate myosin folding, organization into myofibrils, repair, and motility. This chapter reviews emerging functions of these proteins with a focus on UNC-45 as a dedicated chaperone for folding, assembly, and function of myosin at protein and potentially gene levels. Recent experimental evidences strongly support UNC-45 as an absolute regulator of myosin, with each domain of the chaperone playing different but complementary roles during the folding, assembly, and function of myosin, as well as recruiting Hsp90 as a co-chaperone to optimize key steps. It is becoming increasingly clear that UNC-45 also regulates the transcription of several genes involved in myosin-dependent cellular processes.

Hsp90: From Cellular to Organismal Proteostasis

Assuring a healthy proteome is indispensable for survival and organismal health. Proteome disbalance and the loss of the proteostasis buffer are hallmarks of various diseases. The essential molecular chaperone Hsp90 is a regulator of the heat shock response via HSF1 and a stabilizer of a plethora of signaling proteins. In this review, we summarize the role of Hsp90 in the cellular and organismal regulation of proteome maintenance.

UCS Chaperone Folding of the Myosin Head: A Function That Evolved before Animals and Fungi Diverged from a Common Ancestor More than a Billion Years Ago

The folding of the myosin head often requires a UCS (Unc45, Cro1, She4) domain-containing chaperone. Worms, flies, and fungi have just a single UCS protein. Vertebrates have two; one (Unc45A) which functions primarily in non-muscle cells and another (Unc45B) that is essential for establishing and maintaining the contractile apparatus of cardiac and skeletal muscles. The domain structure of these proteins suggests that the UCS function evolved before animals and fungi diverged from a common ancestor more than a billion years ago. UCS proteins of metazoans and apicomplexan parasites possess a tetratricopeptide repeat (TPR), a domain for direct binding of the Hsp70/Hsp90 chaperones. This, however, is absent in the UCS proteins of fungi and largely nonessential for the UCS protein function in Caenorhabditis elegans and zebrafish. The latter part of this review focusses on the TPR-deficient UCS proteins of fungi. While these are reasonably well studied in yeasts, there is little precise information as to how they might engage in interactions with the Hsp70/Hsp90 chaperones or might assist in myosin operations during the hyphal growth of filamentous fungi.

Gene expression and functional analysis of Aha1a and Aha1b in stress response in zebrafish

Activator of heat shock protein 90 (hsp90) ATPase (Aha1) is a Hsp90 co-chaperone required for Hsp90 ATPase activation. Aha1 is essential for yeast survival and muscle development in C. elegans under elevated temperature and hsp90-deficeiency induced stress conditions. The roles of Aha1 in vertebrates are poorly understood. Here, we characterized the expression and function of Aha1 in zebrafish. We showed that zebrafish genome contains two aha1 genes, aha1a and aha1b, that show distinct patterns of expression during development. Under the normal physiological conditions, aha1a is primarily expressed in skeletal muscle cells of zebrafish embryos, while aha1b is strongly expressed in the head region. aha1a and aha1b expression increased dramatically in response to heat shock induced stress. In addition, Aha1a-GFP fusion protein exhibited a dynamic translocation in muscle cells in response to heat shock. Moreover, upregulation of aha1 expression was also observed in hsp90a1 knockdown embryos that showed a muscle defect. Genetic studies demonstrated that knockout of aha1a, aha1b or both had no detectable effect on embryonic development, survival, and growth in zebrafish. The aha1a and aha1b mutant embryos showed normal muscle development and stress response in response to heat shock. Single or double aha1a and aha1b mutants could grow into normal reproductive adults with normal skeletal muscle structure and morphology compared with wild type control. Together, data from these studies indicate that Aha1a and Aha1b are involved in stress response. However, they are dispensable in zebrafish embryonic development, growth, and survival.

HLH-1 Modulates Muscle Proteostasis During Caenorhabditis elegans Larval Development

Muscle proteostasis is shaped by the myogenic transcription factor MyoD which regulates the expression of chaperones during muscle differentiation. Whether MyoD can also modulate chaperone expression in terminally differentiated muscle cells remains open. Here we utilized a temperature-sensitive (ts) conditional knockdown nonsense mutation in MyoD ortholog in C. elegans, HLH-1, to ask whether MyoD plays a role in maintaining muscle proteostasis post myogenesis. We showed that hlh-1 is expressed during larval development and that hlh-1 knockdown at the first, second, or third larval stages resulted in severe defects in motility and muscle organization. Motility defects and myofilament organization were rescued when the clearance of hlh-1(ts) mRNA was inhibited, and hlh-1 mRNA levels were restored. Moreover, hlh-1 knockdown modulated the expression of chaperones with putative HLH-1 binding sites in their promoters, supporting HLH-1 role in muscle maintenance during larval development. Finally, mild disruption of hlh-1 expression during development resulted in earlier dysregulation of muscle maintenance and function during adulthood. We propose that the differentiation transcription factor, HLH-1, contributes to muscle maintenance and regulates cell-specific chaperone expression post differentiation. HLH-1 may thus impact muscle proteostasis and potentially the onset and manifestation of sarcopenia.

Ageing induces tissue‐specific transcriptomic changes in Caenorhabditis elegans

Ageing is a complex process with common and distinct features across tissues. Unveiling the underlying processes driving ageing in individual tissues is indispensable to decipher the mechanisms of organismal longevity. Caenorhabditis elegans is a well‐established model organism that has spearheaded ageing research with the discovery of numerous genetic pathways controlling its lifespan. However, it remains challenging to dissect the ageing of worm tissues due to the limited description of tissue pathology and access to tissue‐specific molecular changes during ageing. In this study, we isolated cells from five major tissues in young and old worms and profiled the age‐induced transcriptomic changes within these tissues. We observed a striking diversity of ageing across tissues and identified different sets of longevity regulators therein. In addition, we found novel tissue‐specific factors, including irx‐1 and myrf‐2, which control the integrity of the intestinal barrier and sarcomere structure during ageing respectively. This study demonstrates the complexity of ageing across worm tissues and highlights the power of tissue‐specific transcriptomic profiling during ageing, which can serve as a resource to the field.

Maintaining proteostasis under mechanical stress

Cell survival, tissue integrity and organismal health depend on the ability to maintain functional protein networks even under conditions that threaten protein integrity. Protection against such stress conditions involves the adaptation of folding and degradation machineries, which help to preserve the protein network by facilitating the refolding or disposal of damaged proteins. In multicellular organisms, cells are permanently exposed to stress resulting from mechanical forces. Yet, for long time mechanical stress was not recognized as a primary stressor that perturbs protein structure and threatens proteome integrity. The identification and characterization of protein folding and degradation systems, which handle force-unfolded proteins, marks a turning point in this regard. It has become apparent that mechanical stress protection operates during cell differentiation, adhesion and migration and is essential for maintaining tissues such as skeletal muscle, heart and kidney as well as the immune system. Here, we provide an overview of recent advances in our understanding of mechanical stress protection.

Molecular features of the UNC-45 chaperone critical for binding and folding muscle myosin

Myosin is a motor protein that is essential for a variety of processes ranging from intracellular transport to muscle contraction. Folding and assembly of myosin relies on a specific chaperone, UNC-45. To address its substrate-targeting mechanism, we reconstitute the interplay between Caenorhabditis elegans UNC-45 and muscle myosin MHC-B in insect cells. In addition to providing a cellular chaperone assay, the established system enabled us to produce large amounts of functional muscle myosin, as evidenced by a biochemical and structural characterization, and to directly monitor substrate binding to UNC-45. Data from in vitro and cellular chaperone assays, together with crystal structures of binding-deficient UNC-45 mutants, highlight the importance of utilizing a flexible myosin-binding domain. This so-called UCS domain can adopt discrete conformations to efficiently bind and fold substrate. Moreover, our data uncover the molecular basis of temperature-sensitive UNC-45 mutations underlying one of the most prominent motility defects in C. elegans.

Myosin, a motor protein essential for intracellular transport to muscle contraction, requires a chaperone UNC-45 for folding and assembly. Here authors use in vitro reconstitution and structural biology to characterize the interplay between UNC-45 and muscle myosin MHC-B.

The Molecular Chaperone HSP90 Promotes Notch Signaling in the Germline of Caenorhabditis elegans

In a genetic screen to identify genes that promote GLP-1/Notch signaling in Caenorhabditis elegans germline stem cells, we found a single mutation, om40, defining a gene called ego-3. ego-3(om40) causes several defects in the soma and the germline, including paralysis during larval development, sterility, delayed proliferation of germline stem cells, and ectopic germline stem cell proliferation. Whole genome sequencing identified om40 as an allele of hsp-90, previously known as daf-21, which encodes the C. elegans ortholog of the cytosolic form of HSP90. This protein is a molecular chaperone with a central position in the protein homeostasis network, which is responsible for proper folding, structural maintenance, and degradation of proteins. In addition to its essential role in cellular function, HSP90 plays an important role in stem cell maintenance and renewal. Complementation analysis using a deletion allele of hsp-90 confirmed that ego-3 is the same gene. hsp-90(om40) is an I→N conservative missense mutation of a highly conserved residue in the middle domain of HSP-90 RNA interference-mediated knockdown of hsp-90 expression partially phenocopied hsp-90(om40), confirming the loss-of-function nature of hsp-90(om40) Furthermore, reduced HSP-90 activity enhanced the effect of reduced function of both the GLP-1 receptor and the downstream LAG-1 transcription factor. Taken together, our results provide the first experimental evidence of an essential role for HSP90 in Notch signaling in development.

Regulation of the Hsp90 system

Hsp90 is a highly conserved and abundant chaperone. It participates in essential cellular activities by supporting the maturation process of its client proteins, many of which are protein kinases and steroid receptors. Client processing is achieved via extensive conformational changes within the dimeric chaperone. This requires an ATP hydrolysis activity that is controlled by auto-inhibitory mechanisms and several structurally diverse cofactors. Especially the client-specificity of Hsp90 depends on client-specific cofactors, which can adapt Hsp90's activities to the client requirements at different conditions and in different cell types. Additionally, post-translational modifications can influence almost every aspect of Hsp90's interactions and activities. In this review, we present these regulatory principles, discuss the factors that have an impact on Hsp90's function and elaborate the mechanisms that are responsible for regulating the Hsp90 machinery.

Uncoupling the Trade-Off between Somatic Proteostasis and Reproduction in Caenorhabditis elegans Models of Polyglutamine Diseases

Caenorhabditis elegans somatic protein homeostasis (proteostasis) is actively remodeled at the onset of reproduction. This proteostatic collapse is regulated cell-nonautonomously by signals from the reproductive system that transmit the commitment to reproduction to somatic cells. Here, we asked whether the link between the reproductive system and somatic proteostasis could be uncoupled by activating downstream effectors in the gonadal longevity cascade. Specifically, we examined whether over-expression of lipl-4 (lipl-4(oe)), a target gene of the gonadal longevity pathway, or increase in arachidonic acid (AA) levels, associated with lipl-4(oe), modulated proteostasis and reproduction. We found that lipl-4(oe) rescued somatic proteostasis and postponed the onset of aggregation and toxicity in C. elegans models of polyglutamine (polyQ) diseases. However, lipl-4(oe) also disrupted fatty acid transport into developing oocytes and reduced reproductive success. In contrast, diet supplementation of AA recapitulated lipl-4(oe)-mediated proteostasis enhancement in wild type animals but did not affect the reproductive system. Thus, the gonadal longevity pathway mediates a trade-off between somatic maintenance and reproduction, in part by regulating the expression of genes, such as lipl-4, with inverse effects on somatic maintenance and reproduction. We propose that AA could uncouple such germline to soma crosstalk, with beneficial implications protein misfolding diseases.

A Differentiation Transcription Factor Establishes Muscle-Specific Proteostasis in Caenorhabditis elegans

Safeguarding the proteome is central to the health of the cell. In multi-cellular organisms, the composition of the proteome, and by extension, protein-folding requirements, varies between cells. In agreement, chaperone network composition differs between tissues. Here, we ask how chaperone expression is regulated in a cell type-specific manner and whether cellular differentiation affects chaperone expression. Our bioinformatics analyses show that the myogenic transcription factor HLH-1 (MyoD) can bind to the promoters of chaperone genes expressed or required for the folding of muscle proteins. To test this experimentally, we employed HLH-1 myogenic potential to genetically modulate cellular differentiation of Caenorhabditis elegans embryonic cells by ectopically expressing HLH-1 in all cells of the embryo and monitoring chaperone expression. We found that HLH-1-dependent myogenic conversion specifically induced the expression of putative HLH-1-regulated chaperones in differentiating muscle cells. Moreover, disrupting the putative HLH-1-binding sites on ubiquitously expressed daf-21(Hsp90) and muscle-enriched hsp-12.2(sHsp) promoters abolished their myogenic-dependent expression. Disrupting HLH-1 function in muscle cells reduced the expression of putative HLH-1-regulated chaperones and compromised muscle proteostasis during and after embryogenesis. In turn, we found that modulating the expression of muscle chaperones disrupted the folding and assembly of muscle proteins and thus, myogenesis. Moreover, muscle-specific over-expression of the DNAJB6 homolog DNJ-24, a limb-girdle muscular dystrophy-associated chaperone, disrupted the muscle chaperone network and exposed synthetic motility defects. We propose that cellular differentiation could establish a proteostasis network dedicated to the folding and maintenance of the muscle proteome. Such cell-specific proteostasis networks can explain the selective vulnerability that many diseases of protein misfolding exhibit even when the misfolded protein is ubiquitously expressed.

Molecular chaperones protect proteins from misfolding and aggregation. In multi-cellular organisms, the composition and expression levels of chaperones vary between tissues. However, little is known of how such differential expression is regulated. We hypothesized that the cellular differentiation that regulates the cell-type specific expression program may be involved in establishing a cell-type specific chaperone network. To test this possibility, we addressed the myogenic commitment transcription factor HLH-1 (CeMyoD) that converts embryonic cells to muscle cells in Caenorhabditis elegans. We demonstrated that HLH-1 regulates the expression of muscle chaperones during muscle differentiation. Moreover, we showed that HLH-1-dependent expression of chaperones is required for embryonic development and muscle function. We propose that cellular differentiation results in cell-specific differences in the chaperone network that may be detrimental in terms of the susceptibility of neurons and muscle cells to protein misfolding diseases.

The struggle by Caenorhabditis elegans to maintain proteostasis during aging and disease

The presence of only small amounts of misfolded protein is an indication of a healthy proteome. Maintaining proteome health, or more specifically, “proteostasis,” is the purview of the “proteostasis network.” This network must respond to constant fluctuations in the amount of destabilized proteins caused by errors in protein synthesis and exposure to acute proteotoxic conditions. Aging is associated with a gradual increase in damaged and misfolded protein, which places additional stress on the machinery of the proteostasis network. In fact, despite the ability of the proteostasis machinery to readjust its stoichiometry in an attempt to maintain homeostasis, the capacity of cells to buffer against misfolding is strikingly limited. Therefore, subtle changes in the folding environment that occur during aging can significantly impact the health of the proteome. This decline and eventual collapse in proteostasis is most pronounced in individuals with neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, and Huntington’s Disease that are caused by the misfolding, aggregation, and toxicity of certain proteins. This review discusses how C. elegans models of protein misfolding have contributed to our current understanding of the proteostasis network, its buffering capacity, and its regulation.

Reviewers: This article was reviewed by Luigi Bubacco, Patrick Lewis and Xavier Roucou.

A Remodeled Hsp90 Molecular Chaperone Ensemble with the Novel Cochaperone Aarsd1 Is Required for Muscle Differentiation

Hsp90 is the ATP-consuming core component of a very abundant molecular chaperone machine that handles a substantial portion of the cytosolic proteome. Rather than one machine, it is in fact an ensemble of molecular machines, since most mammalian cells express two cytosolic isoforms of Hsp90 and a subset of up to 40 to 50 cochaperones and regulate their interactions and functions by a variety of posttranslational modifications. We demonstrate that the Hsp90 ensemble is fundamentally remodeled during muscle differentiation and that this remodeling is not just a consequence of muscle differentiation but possibly one of the drivers to accompany and to match the vast proteomic changes associated with this process. As myoblasts differentiate into myotubes, Hsp90α disappears and only Hsp90β remains, which is the only isoform capable of interacting with the novel muscle-specific Hsp90 cochaperone Aarsd1L. Artificially maintaining Hsp90α or knocking down Aarsd1L expression interferes with the differentiation of C2C12 myotubes. During muscle differentiation, Aarsd1L replaces the more ubiquitous cochaperone p23 and in doing so dampens the activity of the glucocorticoid receptor, one of the Hsp90 clients relevant to muscle functions. This cochaperone switch protects muscle cells against the inhibitory effects of glucocorticoids and may contribute to preventing muscle wasting induced by excess glucocorticoids.

Still Heart Encodes a Structural HMT, SMYD1b, with Chaperone-Like Function during Fast Muscle Sarcomere Assembly

The vertebrate sarcomere is a complex and highly organized contractile structure whose assembly and function requires the coordination of hundreds of proteins. Proteins require proper folding and incorporation into the sarcomere by assembly factors, and they must also be maintained and replaced due to the constant physical stress of muscle contraction. Zebrafish mutants affecting muscle assembly and maintenance have proven to be an ideal tool for identification and analysis of factors necessary for these processes. The still heart mutant was identified due to motility defects and a nonfunctional heart. The cognate gene for the mutant was shown to be smyd1b and the still heart mutation results in an early nonsense codon. SMYD1 mutants show a lack of heart looping and chamber definition due to a lack of expression of heart morphogenesis factors gata4, gata5 and hand2. On a cellular level, fast muscle fibers in homozygous mutants do not form mature sarcomeres due to the lack of fast muscle myosin incorporation by SMYD1b when sarcomeres are first being assembled (19hpf), supporting SMYD1b as an assembly protein during sarcomere formation.