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Beta-catenin phosphorylated at threonine 120 antagonizes generation of active beta-catenin by spatial localization in trans-Golgi network

Du, Cheng
Zhang, Chuanyou
Li, Zhuo
Biswas, Md Helal Uddin
Balaji, Kethandapatti C.
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Abstract

The stability and subcellular localization of beta-catenin, a protein that plays a major role in cell adhesion and proliferation, is tightly regulated by multiple signaling pathways. While aberrant activation of beta-catenin signaling has been implicated in cancers, the biochemical identity of transcriptionally active beta-catenin (ABC), commonly known as unphosphorylated serine 37 (S37) and threonine 41 (T41) beta-catenin, remains elusive. Our current study demonstrates that ABC transcriptional activity is influenced by phosphorylation of T120 by Protein Kinase D1 (PKD1). Whereas the nuclear beta-catenin from PKD1-low prostate cancer cell line C4-2 is unphosphorylated S37/T41/T120 with high transcription activity, the nuclear beta-catenin from PKD1-overexpressing C4-2 cells is highly phosphorylated at T120, S37 and T41 with low transcription activity, implying that accumulation of nuclear beta-catenin alone cannot be simply used as a read-out for Wnt activation. In human normal prostate tissue, the phosphorylated T120 beta-catenin is mainly localized to the trans-Golgi network (TGN, 22/30, 73%), and this pattern is significantly altered in prostate cancer (14/197, 7.1%), which is consistent with known down regulation of PKD1 in prostate cancer. These in vitro and in vivo data unveil a previously unrecognized post-translational modification of ABC through T120 phosphorylation by PKD1, which alters subcellular localization and transcriptional activity of beta-catenin. Our results support the view that beta-catenin signaling activity is regulated by spatial compartmentation and post-translational modifications and protein level of beta-catenin alone is insufficient to count signaling activity.

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Du C, Zhang C, Li Z, Biswas MHU, Balaji KC (2012) Beta-Catenin Phosphorylated at Threonine 120 Antagonizes Generation of Active Beta-Catenin by Spatial Localization in trans-Golgi Network. PLoS ONE 7(4): e33830. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0033830. Link to article on publisher's site

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10.1371/journal.pone.0033830
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22511927
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Copyright: © 2012 Du et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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