The proteasome activator PA200 regulates expression of genes involved in cell survival upon selective mitochondrial inhibition in neuroblastoma cells

The conserved Blm10/PA200 activators bind to the proteasome core and facilitate peptide and protein turnover. Blm10/PA200 proteins enhance proteasome peptidase activity and accelerate the degradation of unstructured proteasome substrates. Our knowledge about the exact role of PA200 in diseased cells, however, is still limited. Here, we show that stable knockdown of PA200 leads to a significantly elevated number of cells in S phase after treatment with the ATP synthase inhibitor, oligomycin. However, following exposure to the complex I inhibitor rotenone, more PA200‐depleted cells were in sub‐G1 and G2/M phases indicative of apoptosis. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) and ChIP‐seq data analysis of collected reads indicate PA200‐enriched regions in the genome of SH‐SY5Y. We found that PA200 protein peaks were in the vicinity of transcription start sites. Gene ontology annotation revealed that genes whose promoters were enriched upon anti‐PA200 ChIP contribute to the regulation of crucial intracellular processes, including proliferation, protein modifications and metabolism. Selective mitochondrial inhibitors induced PA200 redistribution in the genome, leading to protein withdrawal from some gene promoters and binding to others. Collectively, the results support a model in which PA200 potentially regulates cellular homeostasis at the transcriptional level, in addition to its described role as an alternative activator of the proteasome.