The 26S Proteasome Is Required for Estrogen Receptor-α and Coactivator Turnover and for Efficient Estrogen Receptor-α Transactivation

• Published in: Molecular cell Vol. 5; no. 6; pp. 939 - 948
• Main Authors: Lonard, David M, Nawaz, Zafar, Smith, Carolyn L, O'Malley, Bert W
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.06.2000
• Subjects: Amino Acid Sequence; Binding Sites; Cysteine Proteinase Inhibitors - pharmacology; Down-Regulation - drug effects; estradiol; Estradiol - metabolism; Estradiol - pharmacology; Estrogen Receptor alpha; Humans; Leupeptins - pharmacology; Ligands; Ligases - antagonists & inhibitors; Ligases - metabolism; Molecular Sequence Data; Mutation; Peptide Hydrolases - metabolism; Proteasome Endopeptidase Complex; proteasomes 26S; Protein Binding; Receptors, Estrogen - chemistry; Receptors, Estrogen - genetics; Receptors, Estrogen - metabolism; Sequence Alignment; Trans-Activators - genetics; Trans-Activators - metabolism; Transcriptional Activation - drug effects; Transfection; Tumor Cells, Cultured; Ubiquitin-Protein Ligases; Non-programmatic
• ISSN: 1097-2765; 1097-4164
• DOI: 10.1016/S1097-2765(00)80259-2

Estrogen receptor-α (ERα) is downregulated in the presence of its cognate ligand, estradiol (E2), through the ubiquitin proteasome pathway. Here, we show that ubiquitin proteasome function is required for ERα to serve as a transcriptional activator. Deletion of the last 61 amino acids of ERα, including residues that form helix 12, abolishes ligand-mediated downregulation of the receptor as do point mutations in the ligand binding domain that impair coactivator binding. In addition, coactivators also are subject to degradation by the 26S proteasome, but their intrinsic transcriptional activity is not affected. These data provide evidence that protein interactions with ERα coactivator binding surfaces are important for ligand-mediated receptor downregulation and suggest that receptor and coactivator turnover contributes to ERα transcriptional activity.