Arabidopsis small ubiquitin-related modifier protease ASP1 positively regulates abscisic acid signaling during early seedling development~~

The small ubiquitin-related modifier （SUMO） modification plays an important role in the regulation of abscisic acid （ABA） signaling, but the function of the SUMO protease, in ABA signaling, remains largely unknown. Here, we show that the SUMO protease, ASPI positively regulates ABA signaling. Mutations in ASPI resulted in an ABA-insensitive phenotype, during early seedling develop- ment. Wild-type ASP1 successfully rescued, whereas an ASPI mutant （C577S）, defective in SUMO protease activity, failed to rescue, the ABA-insensitive phenotype of asp1-1. Expression of ABI5 and MYB3o target genes was attenuated in asp^-I and our genetic analyses revealed that ASP1 may function upstream of ABI5 and MYB3o.

SUMO-1 Enhancing the p53-induced HepG2 Cell Apoptosis

In order to investigate the effect of small ubiquitin-like modifier-1 (SUMO-1) on the p53-induced HepG2 cell apoptosis, HepG2 cells were transfected by recombinant plasmids as pwtp53, pMDM2 and pSUMO-1 respectively. Western blot was employed to detect the protein expression of the transfected recombinant plasmids and the rate of apoptosis was measured by flow cytometry. The results showed that in cells transfected with pwtp53 and pwtp53+pSUMO-1, the apoptosis rate was (16.79±1.62) % and (18.15±1.36) % respectively, while transfected with pwtp53+pMDM2, the rate was decreased to (5.17±1.23) %. The apoptosis rate was (14.06±1.84) % in the cells transfected with pwtp53+pMDM2+pSUMO-1, significantly higher than that in the cells Transfected with pwtp53+pMDM2 (P<0.01). The apoptosis rates in the cells were all less than 2 % and had no significant difference among the groups. It was suggested that in the HepG2 cells, SUMO-1 can increase the apoptosis induced by wild-type p53 through binding to p53 protein, post-translational modification and inhibiting the p53 degradation by MDM2.

Construction,Expression and Purification of SUMO1-GST Fusion Protein

Sumoylation is an important protein modification discovered recently. SUMO（small ubiquitin-related modifier） pathway regulates the protein stability and transcriptional activity with a 12-kDa small molecular protein, SUMO, ligated to the target protein. The purification of SUMO proteins is a key step to reveal their function. The purpose of this study was to construct the recombinant SUMO1 gene cloned to a pGEX-4T-1 vector to express and purify the SUMO1-GST fusion protein in Escherichia coli. First, the full length DNA sequence of SUMO1 gene was amplified by PCR and was ligated to pMD18-T vector. Then the SUMO1 gene was subcloned to pGEX-4T-1 prokaryotic expression vector between BamHI and XhoI sites, and transformed in Escherichia coli DH5α cells. The right colonies were identified by restrictive enzyme digestion and sequencing. The correct rebombinant plasmid of pGEX-4T-1-SUMO1 was transformed in Escherichia coli BL21 cells and then induced by IPTG（isopropyl- β-D-1- thiogalacto-pyranoside） to express the SUMO1-GST fusion protein. The highly purified SUMO1-GST（glutathione S-transferase） fusion protein was obtained by affinity chromatography. Finally, the properties of SUMO1-GST fusion protein were confirmed by Coomassie brilliant blue strain and Western blot analysis. The recombinant plasmid of pGEX-4T-1-SUMO1 was successfully constructed, and SUMO1-GST fusion proteins were successfully expressed.