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Regulatory Plasticity of Earthworm wMT-2 Gene Expression

Metallothioneins (MTs) are multifunctional proteins occurring throughout the animal kingdom. While the expression and transcriptional regulation of MTs is well-studied in vertebrates, the mechanism of MT activation is still unknown for most invertebrates. Therefore, we examined wMT-2 gene regulation...

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Autores principales: Drechsel, Victoria, Schauer, Karl, Šrut, Maja, Höckner, Martina
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5485937/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28538660
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms18061113
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author Drechsel, Victoria
Schauer, Karl
Šrut, Maja
Höckner, Martina
author_facet Drechsel, Victoria
Schauer, Karl
Šrut, Maja
Höckner, Martina
author_sort Drechsel, Victoria
collection PubMed
description Metallothioneins (MTs) are multifunctional proteins occurring throughout the animal kingdom. While the expression and transcriptional regulation of MTs is well-studied in vertebrates, the mechanism of MT activation is still unknown for most invertebrates. Therefore, we examined wMT-2 gene regulation and expression patterns in Lumbricus rubellus and L. terrestris. Transcription levels, the occupation of DNA binding sites, the expression of putative transcriptional regulators, and promotor DNA methylation were determined. We found that wMT-2 expression does not follow a circadian pattern. However, Cd-induced wMT-2 induction was observed, and was, interestingly, suppressed by physical injury. Moreover, the promotor region that is responsible for the wMT-2 gene regulation was elucidated. ATF, a putative transcriptional regulator, showed increased phosphorylation upon Cd exposure, suggesting that it plays a major role in wMT-2 gene activation. The promotor methylation of wMT-2, on the other hand, is probably not involved in transcriptional regulation. Elucidating the regulatory mechanism of the earthworm MT gene activation might provide insights into the molecular coordination of the environmental stress response in invertebrates, and might also reveal a link to wound repair and, in a broader sense, to immunity.
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spelling pubmed-54859372017-06-29 Regulatory Plasticity of Earthworm wMT-2 Gene Expression Drechsel, Victoria Schauer, Karl Šrut, Maja Höckner, Martina Int J Mol Sci Article Metallothioneins (MTs) are multifunctional proteins occurring throughout the animal kingdom. While the expression and transcriptional regulation of MTs is well-studied in vertebrates, the mechanism of MT activation is still unknown for most invertebrates. Therefore, we examined wMT-2 gene regulation and expression patterns in Lumbricus rubellus and L. terrestris. Transcription levels, the occupation of DNA binding sites, the expression of putative transcriptional regulators, and promotor DNA methylation were determined. We found that wMT-2 expression does not follow a circadian pattern. However, Cd-induced wMT-2 induction was observed, and was, interestingly, suppressed by physical injury. Moreover, the promotor region that is responsible for the wMT-2 gene regulation was elucidated. ATF, a putative transcriptional regulator, showed increased phosphorylation upon Cd exposure, suggesting that it plays a major role in wMT-2 gene activation. The promotor methylation of wMT-2, on the other hand, is probably not involved in transcriptional regulation. Elucidating the regulatory mechanism of the earthworm MT gene activation might provide insights into the molecular coordination of the environmental stress response in invertebrates, and might also reveal a link to wound repair and, in a broader sense, to immunity. MDPI 2017-05-24 /pmc/articles/PMC5485937/ /pubmed/28538660 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms18061113 Text en © 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Drechsel, Victoria
Schauer, Karl
Šrut, Maja
Höckner, Martina
Regulatory Plasticity of Earthworm wMT-2 Gene Expression
title Regulatory Plasticity of Earthworm wMT-2 Gene Expression
title_full Regulatory Plasticity of Earthworm wMT-2 Gene Expression
title_fullStr Regulatory Plasticity of Earthworm wMT-2 Gene Expression
title_full_unstemmed Regulatory Plasticity of Earthworm wMT-2 Gene Expression
title_short Regulatory Plasticity of Earthworm wMT-2 Gene Expression
title_sort regulatory plasticity of earthworm wmt-2 gene expression
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5485937/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28538660
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms18061113
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