Skip to main content
PMC home page
Molecular and Cellular Biology logoLink to Molecular and Cellular Biology
. 1996 Aug;16(8):4088–4094. doi: 10.1128/mcb.16.8.4088

Deletion of an amino-terminal sequence beta-catenin in vivo and promotes hyperphosporylation of the adenomatous polyposis coli tumor suppressor protein.

S Munemitsu 1, I Albert 1, B Rubinfeld 1, P Polakis 1
PMCID: PMC231405  PMID: 8754807

Abstract

Regulation of cell adhesion and cell signaling by beta-catenin occurs through a mechanism likely involving the targeted degradation of the protein. Deletional analysis was used to generate a beta-catenin refractory to rapid turnover and to examine its effects on complexes containing either cadherin or the adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) protein. The results show that amino-terminal deletion of beta-catenin results in a protein with increased stability that acts in a dominant fashion with respect to wild-type beta-catenin. Constitutive expression in AtT20 cells of a beta-catenin lacking 89 N-terminal amino acids (deltaN89beta-catenin) resulted in severely reduced levels of the more labile wild-type beta-catenin. The mutant beta-catenin was expressed at endogenous levels but displaced the vast majority of wild-type beta-catenin associated with N-cadherin. The deltaN89beta-catenin accumulated on the APC protein to a level 10-fold over that of wild-type beta-catenin and recruited a kinase into the APC complex. The kinase was highly active toward APC in vitro and promoted a sodium dodecyl sulfate gel band shift that was also evident for endogenous APC from cells expressing the mutant beta-catenin. Unlike wild-type beta-catenin, which partitions solely as part of a high-molecular-weight complex, the deltaN89 mutant protein also fractionated as a stable monomer, indicating that it had escaped the requirement to associate with other proteins. That similar N-terminal mutants of beta-catenin have been implicated in cellular transformation suggests that their abnormal association with APC may, in part, be responsible for this phenotype.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (710.6 KB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Aberle H., Butz S., Stappert J., Weissig H., Kemler R., Hoschuetzky H. Assembly of the cadherin-catenin complex in vitro with recombinant proteins. J Cell Sci. 1994 Dec;107(Pt 12):3655–3663. doi: 10.1242/jcs.107.12.3655. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Baker S. J., Markowitz S., Fearon E. R., Willson J. K., Vogelstein B. Suppression of human colorectal carcinoma cell growth by wild-type p53. Science. 1990 Aug 24;249(4971):912–915. doi: 10.1126/science.2144057. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Bradley R. S., Cowin P., Brown A. M. Expression of Wnt-1 in PC12 cells results in modulation of plakoglobin and E-cadherin and increased cellular adhesion. J Cell Biol. 1993 Dec;123(6 Pt 2):1857–1865. doi: 10.1083/jcb.123.6.1857. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Funayama N., Fagotto F., McCrea P., Gumbiner B. M. Embryonic axis induction by the armadillo repeat domain of beta-catenin: evidence for intracellular signaling. J Cell Biol. 1995 Mar;128(5):959–968. doi: 10.1083/jcb.128.5.959. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Groden J., Thliveris A., Samowitz W., Carlson M., Gelbert L., Albertsen H., Joslyn G., Stevens J., Spirio L., Robertson M. Identification and characterization of the familial adenomatous polyposis coli gene. Cell. 1991 Aug 9;66(3):589–600. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(81)90021-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Grussenmeyer T., Scheidtmann K. H., Hutchinson M. A., Eckhart W., Walter G. Complexes of polyoma virus medium T antigen and cellular proteins. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1985 Dec;82(23):7952–7954. doi: 10.1073/pnas.82.23.7952. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Heasman J., Crawford A., Goldstone K., Garner-Hamrick P., Gumbiner B., McCrea P., Kintner C., Noro C. Y., Wylie C. Overexpression of cadherins and underexpression of beta-catenin inhibit dorsal mesoderm induction in early Xenopus embryos. Cell. 1994 Dec 2;79(5):791–803. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(94)90069-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Hinck L., Nelson W. J., Papkoff J. Wnt-1 modulates cell-cell adhesion in mammalian cells by stabilizing beta-catenin binding to the cell adhesion protein cadherin. J Cell Biol. 1994 Mar;124(5):729–741. doi: 10.1083/jcb.124.5.729. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Hülsken J., Birchmeier W., Behrens J. E-cadherin and APC compete for the interaction with beta-catenin and the cytoskeleton. J Cell Biol. 1994 Dec;127(6 Pt 2):2061–2069. doi: 10.1083/jcb.127.6.2061. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Jen J., Powell S. M., Papadopoulos N., Smith K. J., Hamilton S. R., Vogelstein B., Kinzler K. W. Molecular determinants of dysplasia in colorectal lesions. Cancer Res. 1994 Nov 1;54(21):5523–5526. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Joslyn G., Carlson M., Thliveris A., Albertsen H., Gelbert L., Samowitz W., Groden J., Stevens J., Spirio L., Robertson M. Identification of deletion mutations and three new genes at the familial polyposis locus. Cell. 1991 Aug 9;66(3):601–613. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(81)90022-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Kawanishi J., Kato J., Sasaki K., Fujii S., Watanabe N., Niitsu Y. Loss of E-cadherin-dependent cell-cell adhesion due to mutation of the beta-catenin gene in a human cancer cell line, HSC-39. Mol Cell Biol. 1995 Mar;15(3):1175–1181. doi: 10.1128/mcb.15.3.1175. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Kinzler K. W., Nilbert M. C., Su L. K., Vogelstein B., Bryan T. M., Levy D. B., Smith K. J., Preisinger A. C., Hedge P., McKechnie D. Identification of FAP locus genes from chromosome 5q21. Science. 1991 Aug 9;253(5020):661–665. doi: 10.1126/science.1651562. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Kowalczyk A. P., Palka H. L., Luu H. H., Nilles L. A., Anderson J. E., Wheelock M. J., Green K. J. Posttranslational regulation of plakoglobin expression. Influence of the desmosomal cadherins on plakoglobin metabolic stability. J Biol Chem. 1994 Dec 9;269(49):31214–31223. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. McCrea P. D., Brieher W. M., Gumbiner B. M. Induction of a secondary body axis in Xenopus by antibodies to beta-catenin. J Cell Biol. 1993 Oct;123(2):477–484. doi: 10.1083/jcb.123.2.477. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. McCrea P. D., Turck C. W., Gumbiner B. A homolog of the armadillo protein in Drosophila (plakoglobin) associated with E-cadherin. Science. 1991 Nov 29;254(5036):1359–1361. doi: 10.1126/science.1962194. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Miyoshi Y., Nagase H., Ando H., Horii A., Ichii S., Nakatsuru S., Aoki T., Miki Y., Mori T., Nakamura Y. Somatic mutations of the APC gene in colorectal tumors: mutation cluster region in the APC gene. Hum Mol Genet. 1992 Jul;1(4):229–233. doi: 10.1093/hmg/1.4.229. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Munemitsu S., Albert I., Souza B., Rubinfeld B., Polakis P. Regulation of intracellular beta-catenin levels by the adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) tumor-suppressor protein. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1995 Mar 28;92(7):3046–3050. doi: 10.1073/pnas.92.7.3046. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Munemitsu S., Souza B., Müller O., Albert I., Rubinfeld B., Polakis P. The APC gene product associates with microtubules in vivo and promotes their assembly in vitro. Cancer Res. 1994 Jul 15;54(14):3676–3681. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Nagafuchi A., Takeichi M. Cell binding function of E-cadherin is regulated by the cytoplasmic domain. EMBO J. 1988 Dec 1;7(12):3679–3684. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1988.tb03249.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Nishisho I., Nakamura Y., Miyoshi Y., Miki Y., Ando H., Horii A., Koyama K., Utsunomiya J., Baba S., Hedge P. Mutations of chromosome 5q21 genes in FAP and colorectal cancer patients. Science. 1991 Aug 9;253(5020):665–669. doi: 10.1126/science.1651563. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  22. Oyama T., Kanai Y., Ochiai A., Akimoto S., Oda T., Yanagihara K., Nagafuchi A., Tsukita S., Shibamoto S., Ito F. A truncated beta-catenin disrupts the interaction between E-cadherin and alpha-catenin: a cause of loss of intercellular adhesiveness in human cancer cell lines. Cancer Res. 1994 Dec 1;54(23):6282–6287. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  23. Ozawa M., Baribault H., Kemler R. The cytoplasmic domain of the cell adhesion molecule uvomorulin associates with three independent proteins structurally related in different species. EMBO J. 1989 Jun;8(6):1711–1717. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1989.tb03563.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  24. Papkoff J., Rubinfeld B., Schryver B., Polakis P. Wnt-1 regulates free pools of catenins and stabilizes APC-catenin complexes. Mol Cell Biol. 1996 May;16(5):2128–2134. doi: 10.1128/mcb.16.5.2128. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  25. Peifer M. Cell adhesion and signal transduction: the Armadillo connection. Trends Cell Biol. 1995 Jun;5(6):224–229. doi: 10.1016/s0962-8924(00)89015-7. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  26. Peifer M., Sweeton D., Casey M., Wieschaus E. wingless signal and Zeste-white 3 kinase trigger opposing changes in the intracellular distribution of Armadillo. Development. 1994 Feb;120(2):369–380. doi: 10.1242/dev.120.2.369. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  27. Polakis P. Mutations in the APC gene and their implications for protein structure and function. Curr Opin Genet Dev. 1995 Feb;5(1):66–71. doi: 10.1016/s0959-437x(95)90055-1. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  28. Powell S. M., Zilz N., Beazer-Barclay Y., Bryan T. M., Hamilton S. R., Thibodeau S. N., Vogelstein B., Kinzler K. W. APC mutations occur early during colorectal tumorigenesis. Nature. 1992 Sep 17;359(6392):235–237. doi: 10.1038/359235a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  29. Rubinfeld B., Albert I., Porfiri E., Fiol C., Munemitsu S., Polakis P. Binding of GSK3beta to the APC-beta-catenin complex and regulation of complex assembly. Science. 1996 May 17;272(5264):1023–1026. doi: 10.1126/science.272.5264.1023. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  30. Rubinfeld B., Souza B., Albert I., Munemitsu S., Polakis P. The APC protein and E-cadherin form similar but independent complexes with alpha-catenin, beta-catenin, and plakoglobin. J Biol Chem. 1995 Mar 10;270(10):5549–5555. doi: 10.1074/jbc.270.10.5549. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  31. Rubinfeld B., Souza B., Albert I., Müller O., Chamberlain S. H., Masiarz F. R., Munemitsu S., Polakis P. Association of the APC gene product with beta-catenin. Science. 1993 Dec 10;262(5140):1731–1734. doi: 10.1126/science.8259518. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  32. Siegfried E., Wilder E. L., Perrimon N. Components of wingless signalling in Drosophila. Nature. 1994 Jan 6;367(6458):76–80. doi: 10.1038/367076a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  33. Smith A. J., Stern H. S., Penner M., Hay K., Mitri A., Bapat B. V., Gallinger S. Somatic APC and K-ras codon 12 mutations in aberrant crypt foci from human colons. Cancer Res. 1994 Nov 1;54(21):5527–5530. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  34. Smith K. J., Levy D. B., Maupin P., Pollard T. D., Vogelstein B., Kinzler K. W. Wild-type but not mutant APC associates with the microtubule cytoskeleton. Cancer Res. 1994 Jul 15;54(14):3672–3675. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  35. Tsukamoto A. S., Grosschedl R., Guzman R. C., Parslow T., Varmus H. E. Expression of the int-1 gene in transgenic mice is associated with mammary gland hyperplasia and adenocarcinomas in male and female mice. Cell. 1988 Nov 18;55(4):619–625. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(88)90220-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  36. Whitehead I., Kirk H., Kay R. Expression cloning of oncogenes by retroviral transfer of cDNA libraries. Mol Cell Biol. 1995 Feb;15(2):704–710. doi: 10.1128/mcb.15.2.704. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Molecular and Cellular Biology are provided here courtesy of Taylor & Francis

RESOURCES