Interview with Dr. Dae Joon Kim and Liza Morales from the Department of Biomedical Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

Dr. Dae Joon Kim and Liza Morales from the Department of Biomedical Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, TX, detail a priority research paper they co-authored that was published by Oncotarget in Volume 8, Issue 53, entitled, "UVB-induced nuclear translocation of TC-PTP by AKT/14-3-3? axis inhibits keratinocyte survival and proliferation."

Understanding protein subcellular localization is important to determining the functional role of specific proteins. T-cell protein tyrosine phosphatase (TC-PTP) contains bipartite nuclear localization signals (NLSI and NLSII) in its C-terminus. We previously have demonstrated that the nuclear form of TC-PTP (TC45) is mainly localized to the cytoplasm in keratinocytes and it is translocated to the nucleus following UVB irradiation. Here, we report that TC45 is translocated by an AKT/14-3-3σ-mediated mechanism in response to UVB exposure, resulting in increased apoptosis and decreased keratinocyte proliferation. We demonstrate that UVB irradiation increased phosphorylation of AKT and induced nuclear translocation of 14-3-3σ and TC45. However, inhibition of AKT blocked nuclear translocation of TC45 and 14-3-3σ. Site-directed mutagenesis of 14-3-3σ binding sites within TC45 showed that a substitution at Threonine 179 (TC45/T179A) effectively blocked UVB-induced nuclear translocation of ectopic TC45 due to the disruption of the direct binding between TC45 and 14-3-3σ. Overexpression of TC45/T179A in keratinocytes resulted in a decrease of UVB-induced apoptosis which corresponded to an increase in nuclear phosphorylated STAT3, and cell proliferation was higher in TC45/T179A-overexpressing keratinocytes compared to control keratinocytes following UVB irradiation. Furthermore, deletion of TC45 NLSII blocked its UVB-induced nuclear translocation, indicating that both T179 and NLSII are required. Taken together, our findings suggest that AKT and 14-3-3σ cooperatively regulate TC45 nuclear translocation in a critical step of an early protective mechanism against UVB exposure that signals the deactivation of STAT3 in order to promote keratinocyte cell death and inhibit keratinocyte proliferation.

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DOI - https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.21794

Full text - https://www.oncotarget.com/article/21794/text/

Correspondence to - Dae Joon Kim - [email protected]

Keywords - TC-PTP, nuclear translocation, AKT, 14-3-3α, keratinocytes