Endocrinology, doi:10.1210/en.2004-1405
Endocrinology Vol. 146, No. 4 1871-1882
Copyright © 2005 by The Endocrine Society
A Dominant Negative Human Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor (PPAR)
Is a Constitutive Transcriptional Corepressor and Inhibits Signaling through All PPAR Isoforms
R. K. Semple1,
A. Meirhaeghe1,
A. J. Vidal-Puig,
J. W. R. Schwabe,
D. Wiggins,
G. F. Gibbons,
M. Gurnell,
V. K. K. Chatterjee and
S. ORahilly
Departments of Clinical Biochemistry (R.K.S., A.J.V.-P., S.O.) and Medicine (M.G., V.K.K.C., S.O.), University of Cambridge, Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge CB2 2QQ, United Kingdom; Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale U.508 (A.M.), Institut Pasteur de Lille, 59019 Lille Cedex, France; Metabolic Research Laboratory (D.W., G.F.G.), Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford, Churchill Hospital, Oxford OX3 7LJ, United Kingdom; MRC-Laboratory of Molecular Biology (J.W.R.S.), Cambridge CB2 2QH, United Kingdom
Address all correspondence and requests for reprints to: Robert Semple, Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge CB2 2QR, United Kingdom. E-mail: rks16{at}cam.ac.uk.
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Abstract
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Several missense mutations in the ligand-binding domain of human peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)
have been described in subjects with dominantly inherited severe insulin resistance associated with partial lipodystrophy, hypertension, and dyslipidemia. These mutant receptors behave as dominant-negative inhibitors of PPAR
signaling when studied in transfected cells. The extent to which such dominant-negative effects extend to signaling through other coexpressed PPAR isoforms has not been evaluated. To examine these issues further, we have created a PPAR
mutant harboring twin substitutions, Leu459Ala and Glu462Ala, within the ligand binding domain (PPAR
mut), examined its signaling properties, and compared the effects of dominant-negative PPAR
and PPAR
mutants on basal and ligand-induced gene transcription in adipocytes and hepatocytes. PPAR
mut was transcriptionally inactive, repressed basal activity from a PPAR response element-containing promoter, inhibited the coactivator function of cotransfected PPAR-
coactivator 1
, and strongly inhibited the transcriptional response to cotransfected wild-type receptor. In contrast to PPAR
, wild-type PPAR
failed to recruit the transcriptional corepressors NCoR and SMRT. However, PPAR
mut avidly recruited these corepressors in a ligand-dissociable manner. In hepatocytes and adipocytes, both PPAR
mut and the corresponding PPAR
mutant were capable of inhibiting the expression of genes primarily regulated by PPAR
, -
, or -
ligands, albeit with some differences in potency. Thus, dominant-negative forms of PPAR
and PPAR
are capable of interfering with PPAR signaling in a manner that is not wholly restricted to their cognate target genes. These findings may have implications for the pathogenesis of human syndromes resulting from mutations in this family of transcription factors.
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Introduction
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NATURALLY OCCURRING MUTATIONS in the nuclear hormone receptor peroxisome proliferator- activated receptor (PPAR)
are now well established as the cause of a stereotyped human syndrome of severe insulin resistance, partial lipodystrophy, hypertension, and dyslipidemia, often manifesting in women as polycystic ovary syndrome and preeclampsia (1, 2). The majority of mutations (mut) reported to date lie within the ligand-binding domain (LBD) of the receptor and, when studied in vitro, exhibit dominant-negative activity when coexpressed with their wild-type (wt) counterpart (3, 4). The molecular basis of the dominant-negative activity of mutations in the PPAR
LBD has been most closely examined in relation to an artificial double-mutant receptor (Leu468Ala/Glu471Ala) (5). This receptor was found to bind DNA and heterodimerize with retinoid X receptor (RXR) normally. Its marked dominant-negative activity reflected aberrant interaction with nuclear receptor coregulators: release of corepressor molecules such as nuclear receptor corepressor (NCoR) and silencing mediator of retinoid and thyroid receptors (SMRT) was impaired, whereas the ligand-induced recruitment of coactivators such as cAMP response element-binding protein was also greatly diminished. Similar findings have more recently been reported for two of the naturally occurring PPAR
mutants (3). It is notable that no naturally occurring mutations within other PPAR isoforms (
and
) have yet been reported.
We have now elected to investigate whether equivalent mutations in another PPAR isoform would also result in a dominant-negative receptor and, if so, determine whether they would do so through entirely analogous molecular mechanisms. Thus, we first created the corresponding mutations in PPAR
to those described previously for PPAR
and examined the signaling properties of the mutant receptor in detail. In transient transfection assays using an artificial PPAR response element reporter gene construct, we demonstrated that the dominant-negative mutant PPAR
failed to mediate ligand-induced transcriptional activation and moreover interfered with the action of not only PPAR
-specific ligands acting through cotransfected wild-type PPAR
but also a PPAR
-specific ligand and a PPAR
-specific ligand acting through their cognate receptors.
The availability of dominant-negative mutants of both PPAR
and PPAR
, which could be adenovirally transduced into differentiated cells, allowed us to extend our investigation of the specificity of dominant-negative activity within this receptor family. By adenovirally transducing adipocyte and hepatocyte cell lines with either the PPAR
or PPAR
dominant-negative receptors and examining their effects on basal and ligand-induced transcription of canonical target genes for each PPAR isoform, we demonstrated that cross-inhibition of PPAR signaling is also seen for transcriptional responses mediated by endogenous PPARs.
The physiological relevance of these observations is unclear, but if such cross-inhibition occurs in vivo, this suggests that the metabolic syndrome seen in humans with PPAR
dominant-negative mutations might represent the composite effects of the receptor mutants on signaling through more than one coexpressed isoform of PPAR
.
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Materials and Methods
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Plasmid constructs
The full-length human PPAR
cDNA was cloned by RT-PCR from total HepG2 cell RNA using the following oligonucleotides: sense, 5'-CAG GGT ACC ACC ATG GAC TAC AAA GAC GAT GAC GAC AAG ATG GTG GAC ACG GAA AGC CCA CTC T-3', and antisense, 5'-TGG CGG CCG CTC AGT ACA TGT CCC TGT AGA TCT CC-3'. The sense oligonucleotide contained a Kozak translation signal (ACCATG) and a FLAG epitope (MDYKDDDDK residues). An amplicon of 1450 bp was obtained after 30 cycles (94 C for 1 min, 63 C for 1 min, and 72 C for 1 min 30 sec) with a 1:1 ratio of pfu turbo (Stratagene, La Jolla, CA)/AmpliTaq Gold (PerkinElmer, Norwalk, CT). The PCR product was purified and cloned into pcDNA3.1 (+) (Invitrogen, Paisley, UK) using the KpnI and NotI restriction sites, making pcDNA3-PPAR
wt. The insert was sequenced to confirm its integrity.
The leucine and glutamate at positions 459 and 462, respectively, were mutated into alanine by PCR site-directed mutagenesis using the Quickchange kit (Stratagene) according to the suppliers instructions with the following oligonucleotides: sense, 5'-GCT GCG CTG CAC CCG GCA CTG CAG GCG ATC TAC AGG GAC ATG-3', and antisense, 5'-CAT GTC CCT GTA GAT CGC CTG CAG TGC CGG GTG CAG CGC AGC-3' (mutations underlined). After confirmation by direct sequencing, the insert was double digested with KpnI and NotI and ligated into empty pcDNA3.1 (+) vector between KpnI and NotI sites.
The hinge region and LBD (amino acids 167468) of PPAR
wt and PPAR
mut were amplified using the following oligonucleotides: sense, 5'-CAT GAA TTC TCA CAC AAC GCG ATT CGT TT33' and antisense 5'-CAC GAA TTC TCA GTA CAT GTC CCT GTA GAT-3' from pcDNA3-PPAR
wt and pcDNA3-PPAR
mut, and the PCR product (909 bp) was cloned into the EcoRI site of AASV-VP16 vector to give VP16-PPAR
wt LBD and VP16-PPAR
mut LBD. The L468A/E471A PPAR
double mutant, human PPAR
2, Gal4-NCoR, and Gal4-SMRT (5); peroxisome proliferator response element (PPRE)3-TKLUC (6); UASTKLUC (7); CRBPIITKLUC (8); MALTKLUC, RSV-TRß1, and RSV-RXR
(9); retinoic acid receptor (RAR)ß2TKLUC and RSV-RAR
1 (10) constructs have been described previously. The PcDNA3-PPAR
has been described previously (11) and was a gift from Dr. R. Vogel (Merck, Whitehouse Station, NJ). The hemagglutinin-tagged human PPAR-
coactivator 1 (PGC1)
plasmid was a gift from Dr. A. Kralli (University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland).
Transfection assays
HepG2 cells were maintained in DMEM containing 4.5 g glucose/liter (Sigma, Poole, UK) supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS) and penicillin/streptomycin. Cells were split into 24- or 96-well plates and transfected 8 h later in the same medium using Fugene (Roche, Stockholm, Sweden). A ratio of 3 µl Fugene to 1 µg DNA was used for all transfections. The transfection efficiency was estimated by cotransfecting the vector pRL-cytomegalovirus (CMV) (Promega, Southampton, UK) encoding the Renilla luciferase gene. Fifteen hours after transfection, the medium was removed, the cells were washed once with PBS, and fresh medium containing the relevant ligand added for 30 h. The cells were then harvested and both Firefly and Renilla luciferase activities were measured in 20 µl of lysate according to the manufacturers instructions (dual luciferase assay, Promega). The following specific ligands were used: PPAR
-GW7647 (12) (Sigma), RXR
-LG100268 (13) (a gift from Mark Leibowitz, Ligand Pharmaceuticals, San Diego, CA), PPAR
-BRL49653 (14) (Alexis, San Diego, CA), and PPAR
-L165041 (15) (a gift from Dr. D. Moller, Merck).
Recombinant adenovirus construction
The PPAR
mut recombinant adenovirus was created using the AdEAsy kit according to the suppliers instructions (QBiogene, France). Briefly, the human PPAR
mut cDNA was cloned into pShuttle-CMV between KpnI and NotI restriction sites. The vector was linearized with PmeI and cotransformed with the pAdEasy-1 vector into BJ5183 competent cells by electroporation to effect recombination between the two vectors. Recombinants were then digested with BstXI. DH5
cells were transformed with one positive recombinant clone, and DNA was extracted using the large-construct maxiprep kit (Qiagen, West Sussex, UK). Direct sequencing was used to verify the integrity of the cDNA and the presence of the mutations. The DNA was linearized with PacI and QBI-293A cells plated in 6-well plates with agarose-DMEM overlay were infected with the viral DNA to produce viral particles. Plaques appeared after 14 d and were picked and transferred onto fresh QBI-293A cells. Cytopathic effect (CPE) started to appear after 8 d. A second round of amplification was performed and CPE was complete after 4 d. The viral particles were released by three cycles of freezing/thawing and large-scale amplification performed by QBiogene (Canada).
Use of recombinant adenovirus in cultured cells
Male Wistar rats, fed and housed as described previously (16), were used for the preparation of hepatocytes when they weighed between 200 and 300 g. Hepatocytes were prepared under sterile conditions (17) and were suspended [(0.751.0) x 106 cells/ml)] in Waymouths medium MB752/1 supplemented with amino acids, antibiotics, and 10% (vol/vol) heat-inactivated FBS. Then 3.0 ml of this suspension was added to culture dishes coated with rat-tail collagen, and after 3 h, the cells became attached as a monolayer. The medium was removed and the cells were washed twice with 3.0ml PBS before addition of 3.0 ml serum-free Waymouths medium supplemented with amino acids, antibiotics, 1 µM dexamethasone, 1 mM pyruvate, and 10 mM lactate (supplemented medium). To each plate was added adenoviral storage buffer, green fluorescent protein (GFP)-expressing adenovirus, or PPAR
mut-expressing adenovirus. Plaque-forming units (PFUs) of each virus (1.26 x 108) were used per plate, giving a multiplicity of infection (MOI) of approximately 60 PFU/cell, in line with previous publications. After 3 h of incubation in virus-containing medium, the cells were washed twice with PBS before addition of supplemented medium containing the relevant concentration of PPAR
agonist GW7647 or dimethylsulfoxide. After 16 h RNA was extracted from the cells using the RNEasy kit (Qiagen).
HepG2 experiments were carried out in DMEM containing 4.5 g/liter glucose (Sigma) supplemented with 10% FBS and antibiotics in 12-well plates. Adenoviral vector or vehicle (5 x 106 PFU) was added per well (MOI around 20 PFU/cell), and cells were incubated for 12 h before washing with PBS and replacement with medium containing GW7647 or dimethylsulfoxide. At this stage, infection rates of greater than 95% for the GFP and GFP/PPAR
mut viruses were verified by fluorescence microscopy of the living cells. After 48 h RNA was extracted using the RNEasy kit.
3T3-L1 preadipocytes (American Type Culture Collection, Manassas, Va) were maintained at less than 70% confluence in DMEM containing 4.5 g/liter glucose supplemented with 10% newborn calf serum, penicillin/streptomycin, and 2 mM glutamine (all Sigma). For each experiment, cells were seeded into 12-well plates and grown until 2 d post confluence. Differentiation medium consisted of the FBS-containing medium supplemented with insulin (5 µg/ml), dexamethasone (0.1 µg/ml), and 3-isobutyl-1-methylxanthine (110 µg/ml). Where cells were to be fully differentiated, this was replaced after 3 d by the FBS-containing medium supplemented with insulin (5 µg/ml) alone and after a further 3 d by the FBS-containing medium alone. A pilot study to assess the validity of adipocyte fatty acid binding protein 4 (aP2) as a specific transcriptional target of PPAR
in 3T3-L1 preadipocytes was carried out. The cells were induced to differentiate in the presence of BRL49653or vehicle and RT-PCR used to quantify mRNA levels aP2. In comparison with differentiation medium (DM) alone, BRL49653plus DM resulted in a more than 20-fold increase in aP2 mRNA levels at 48 h. Thus, BRL49653stimulation concomitant with the first 2 d of differentiation was chosen to test the effect of the mutant PPARs. For adenovirus experiments, cells at 2 d post confluence were exposed to maintenance medium containing either adenoviral storage buffer or 2 x 109 PFU of adenovirus per well (MOI around 5000 PFU/cell unless otherwise indicated) for 12 h with agitation. Adenovirus-expressing GFP alone (QBiogene) was used to assess infection rates in conjunction with fluorescence microscopy. The monolayers were then washed with PBS, and cells were incubated in DM containing different concentrations of BRL49653for 48 h before RNA extraction using the RNEasy kit (Qiagen). Oil Red O staining employing a standard protocol was used to assess differentiation in those experiments in which cells were differentiated for 12 d.
Real-time quantitative PCR
On the basis of published work, we identified peroxisomal fatty acyl-coenzyme A oxidase (pFAO), pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase (PDK) 4 and cytochrome IVA1 as robustly responsive targets of PPAR
in rat liver and PDK4 and liver type carnitine palmitoyl transferase 1 (CPT1) as targets in human liver and derived cell lines. Primer Express software (version 1.0, PerkinElmer Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA) was used to design the probes and primers for real-time quantitative PCR shown in Table 1
. Five hundred nanograms of total RNA was reverse transcribed for 1 h at 37 C in a 20-µl reaction including 1 x reverse transcription buffer and 100 U Moloney murine leukemia virus reverse transcriptase, 250 ng random hexamers, 1.25 mmol/liter deoxynucleotide triphosphates (all Promega), and the solution was made up to 100 µl. Two microliters of the resulting cDNA were used in each 25 µl PCR, in which 300 nmol/liter of forward and reverse primers and 150 nmol/liter of fluorogenic probe were used. Reactions were carried out at least in duplicate for each sample on an ABI 7700 sequence detection system (PerkinElmer Biosystems) according to the manufacturers instructions, and target values were normalized to either glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) or 18S rRNA as indicated (rodent and human reagents from PerkinElmer).
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Results
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Figure 1
shows the amino acid sequence comparison of the distal LBD of human, rat, and Xenopus PPARs. The leucine and glutamate residues that confer on human PPAR
dominant-negative activity when mutated into alanine (5) are conserved in all homologs shown. Therefore, we decided to apply this mutational strategy to create a dominant-negative mutant of PPAR
. Thus, wild-type PPAR
cDNA was amplified and cloned from HepG2 cell cDNA, and Leu459 and Glu462 were replaced by alanine using site-directed mutagenesis to create PPAR
mut.
The transcriptional activity of PPAR
mut was then investigated by cotransfecting HepG2 cells with expression vectors encoding RXR
, PPAR
wt, or PPAR
mut and a reporter construct consisting of three copies of the PPRE of the acyl-coenzyme A oxidase gene coupled to the Firefly luciferase gene (PPRE3-TKLUC), with the Renilla luciferase vector as a transfection control. In the presence of 100 nM GW7647 and LG100268, PPAR
wt induced luciferase activity by 4-fold (Fig. 2A
). The PPAR
mut, in contrast, exhibited intense suppression of both basal (Fig. 2A
, inset) and ligand-stimulated transcription (Fig. 2A
). Ligand dose response testing (Fig. 2B
) confirmed the complete inability of PPAR
mut to mediate a transcriptional response to ligand. Thus, the introduction of the two mutations in the ligand-binding domain of PPAR
was sufficient to abolish its transactivation capacity.
Recruitment of transcriptional coregulators
To elucidate the mechanism of this loss of function, we went on to examine the interactions of PPAR
mut with a panel of transcriptional coregulator molecules. First, corepressor recruitment by PPAR
wt and PPAR
mut was assessed in a mammalian two-hybrid assay using the receptor-interacting domains of SMRT and NCoR fused to the Gal4 DNA binding domain (DBD) and the LBD of PPAR
wt or PPAR
mut fused to the activation domain of VP16 (Fig. 3
). HepG2 cells were cotransfected with the Gal4-corepressor chimera, together with either the wild-type or mutant fusion construct and the UAS-TKLUC reporter. In the case of the wild-type receptor, recruitment of neither NCoR (Fig. 3A
) nor SMRT (Fig. 3B
) could be detected. However, in marked contrast, the PPAR
mut LBD was able to recruit either NCoR or SMRT in the unliganded state and release them in a dose-dependent manner after addition of GW7647.
Second, we explored the capacity of a known nuclear receptor coactivator to potentiate transcriptional activation by PPAR
wt and PPAR
mut. HepG2 cells were cotransfected with PPAR
wt or PPAR
mut plasmids, the PPRE3-TKLUC reporter plasmid, and incremental amounts of hemagglutinin-tagged hPGC1
expression vector and stimulated with ligand, with results normalized to Renilla luciferase activity. A clear dose response of reporter activity to increasing amounts of hPGC1
was observed both in the presence of the reporter plasmid alone (in which case endogenous PPAR expression presumably accounts for the transcriptional activity) and with overexpressed PPAR
wt, although it should be noted that basal activity was much higher in the presence of exogenous receptor (Fig. 4
). Similar but enhanced transactivation profiles were recorded after the addition of GW7647. Strikingly, the presence of PPAR
mut virtually abolished transcriptional activity at all concentrations of PGC1
and ligand (Fig. 4
).
Dominant-negative activity of PPAR
mut
To evaluate the possible dominant-negative activity of the mutant, HepG2 cells were cotransfected with either PPAR
wt or PPAR
wt and PPAR
mut (Fig. 5
). The addition of PPAR
mut reduced the ability of PPAR
wt to transactivate the luciferase gene by 50%, demonstrating that the mutant possesses dominant-negative activity (Fig. 5A
). This effect shows dose responsiveness, with a 75% reduction of activity seen with a 10-fold excess of mutant.
We also tested the effect of the PPAR
mut on PPAR
-mediated transcription. The presence of the thiazolidinedione ligand BRL49653at 100 nM resulted in an 8-fold activation of luciferase activity (Fig. 5B
). However, addition of equimolar PPAR
mut was associated with a 75% decrease in PPAR
-mediated transcriptional activity at 100 nM BRL49653 Further suppression was again seen with a 10-fold excess of mutant. Using the same reporter construct, we also demonstrated potent dominant-negative activity of the mutant PPAR
over PPAR
(Fig. 5C
). Thus, in this cotransfection system, there appears to be no selectivity of the inhibitory effect of the PPAR
mut construct for PPAR
-mediated over PPAR
- and PPAR
-mediated transcriptional activation, albeit in the context of an artificial, minimal PPRE-containing promoter.
To assess whether the dominant-negative activity of the mutant construct is selective or specific for PPAR-mediated responses, we also investigated the effect of coexpressing PPAR
mut with other nuclear hormone receptors in the presence and absence of their specific ligand. Expression of PPAR
mut either at the same level or in 5-fold excess had no significant effect on robust transcriptional responses mediated by RAR
, thyroid hormone receptor ß1, or RXR
in the presence of their cognate ligands, suggesting that its powerful dominant-negative activity is selective for PPAR-mediated responses (Fig. 6
).
Effect of PPAR
mut adenoviral expression on native PPAR-responsive genes
Because the PPAR-dependent promoter used hitherto was artificial and possibly unrepresentative of isoform-specific PPAR-driven responses in living cells, we went on to look at the effect of PPAR
mut expression on well-characterized canonical PPAR-mediated responses in primary rat hepatocytes, HepG2 cells, and murine 3T3-L1 preadipocytes. To this end, we created an adenovirus-based expression vector encoding the PPAR
mut cDNA and compared its ability to inhibit PPAR-mediated responses with the inhibitory activity of a previously described PPAR
mut/GFP-coexpressing adenovirus (5). Cells in culture were infected with vehicle, a GFP-expressing adenovirus, PPAR
mut-expressing adenovirus, or GFP/PPAR
mut-expressing adenovirus under conditions that have been optimized to permit high levels of infection. The infected cells were subsequently exposed to a range of ligand concentrations (PPAR
-GW7647, PPAR
-BRL49653, PPAR
-L165041), and PPAR target gene mRNA expression was assessed by real-time quantitative PCR.
In rat hepatocytes, PDK4 showed a steep dose-dependent response to PPAR
agonist (GW7647) in both uninfected cells and cells infected with GFP-expressing virus, with a 15- to 20-fold induction of mRNA levels (Fig. 7A
). In the presence of the PPAR
mut, not only was induction of expression ablated, but there was also baseline suppression of PDK4 mRNA levels, and indeed they did not approach the uninfected baseline until very high concentrations of ligand were added (Fig. 7A
). The PPAR
mut adenovirus also significantly attenuated the response to the PPAR
agonist but to a lesser degree: no suppression of baseline activity was seen, and the peak stimulation of mRNA expression was around 3-fold. Similar patterns were seen for pFAO (fig 7B
) and CYPIVA1 (data not shown), although the degree of induction of mRNA was less (8- to 10-fold).
In HepG2 cells, addition of PPAR
agonist GW7647 resulted in modest induction of CPT1 (Fig. 8A
) and strong induction of PDK4 (Fig. 8B
). In both cases, PPAR
mut and PPAR
mut attenuated this, most markedly in the case of PDK4 with, once again, a more robust effect seen with the PPAR
mut-expressing virus.
Next, to determine whether the adenoviral constructs were equally capable of attenuating the responsiveness of selective PPAR
target genes, we turned to the murine 3T3-L1 preadipocyte cell line. Preliminary experiments established that addition of 100 nM BRL49653to standard proadipogenic DM for 48 h resulted in a 20-fold greater increase in mRNA levels of aP2 than with DM alone, which we thus regarded as a robust PPAR
-specific response against which to test the effects of the mutant constructs. This response was dramatically attenuated in the presence of either the PPAR
mut or PPAR
mut, with the PPAR
mut once again exhibiting a greater effect (Fig. 9A
). A correlate of this was seen in the failure of 3T3-L1 cells infected with either construct to accumulate lipid in response to standard differentiation conditions (Fig. 9C
) (5).

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FIG. 9. Effect of PPAR mut or PPAR mut on endogenous PPAR and PPAR target genes. A, Two-day postconfluent 3T3-L1 preadipocytes were infected with Ad- mut, Ad-GFP, or Ad- mut for 12 h before 48 h of exposure to adipogenic DM and different concentrations of BRL49653 aP2 mRNA levels were then determined by quantitative real-time PCR and normalized to 18S rRNA levels. B, HepG2 cells were infected with Ad- mut, Ad-GFP, or Ad- mut and then exposed to GW7647 for 48 h before measurement of PDK4 mRNA levels by quantitative RT-PCR, normalized to GAPDH. The means of three experiments are shown, with error bars representing the SD. C, Two-day postconfluent 3T3-L1 preadipocytes were infected with no adenovirus, Ad-GFP, or Ad- mut at the range of MOIs shown before adipogenic differentiation as described using a standard protocol. Lipid accumulation was assessed by staining with oil Red O at d 10. Representative images are shown. Maximal infection rates of 90% were achieved at an MOI of 109 Ad-GFP PFU per well (not shown).
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Because PDK4 has been shown previously to be a robustly responsive gene to PPAR
stimulation as well as PPAR
stimulation (18), we finally tested the effect of adenoviral overexpression of either PPAR
mut or PPAR
mut in HepG2 cells on this response. Both mutant receptors were found to inhibit the response of PDK4 to stimulation with the specific PPAR
agonist L165041 (Fig. 9B
), suggesting that the dominant-negative activity of these agents extends also to the action of PPAR
.
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Discussion
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The PPAR family consists of three structurally related nuclear receptors,
,
, and
, which are intimately involved in the sensing of, and metabolic response to, nutritional status. Whereas PPAR
is best established as a pivotal mediator of adipocyte differentiation and the cellular trapping and accumulation of lipid, PPAR
is principally involved in the control of fatty acid oxidation, lipoprotein assembly, and amino acid catabolism and plays a central role in the metabolic response to fasting. The physiological roles of PPAR
, which is widely expressed, are, as yet, less well defined. Although all three isoforms are capable of binding and responding to a wide array of lipid mediators, the question of whether each isoform has a specific high-affinity endogenous ligand is still unresolved.
Murine genetic knockout models have contributed substantially to our understanding of the biology of the PPARs (19, 20). Human genetics has also made important contributions: most notably, four different germline mutations of PPAR
resulting in amino acid substitutions in the LBD of the receptor have been described in association with a stereotyped clinical syndrome of severe insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, hypertension, hepatic steatosis, and partial lipodystrophy. Two of these (Pro467Leu and Val290Met) have been shown to exert potent dominant-negative activity over their wild-type counterpart (3, 4). In contrast, Phe388Leu reportedly failed to exhibit dominant-negative activity (21). However, subsequent studies in our own laboratory with both the Phe388Leu and previously uncharacterized Arg425Cys mutants have revealed comparable ability to interfere with wild-type signaling (Gurnell, M., and V. K. K. Chatterjee, unpublished data). The importance of dominant negativity, as opposed to haploinsufficiency, is supported by the absence of a marked metabolic phenotype in human subjects carrying a PPAR
frameshift/premature stop mutation, which produces a transcriptionally inactive truncated receptor that is unable to act as a dominant negative (22). It is further attested to by the discovery that a proportion of thyroid follicular carcinomas express a fusion protein consisting of the DBD of the transcription factor paired box transcription factor 8 and the LBD of PPAR
. This chimeric species not only fails to transactivate on PPAR
-responsive promoters but also suppresses the transactivation function of wild-type PPAR
on such promoters, an activity that has been implicated in the pathogenesis of these neoplasia (23).
In contrast, no pathogenic mutations in PPAR
or PPAR
have been described to date in human subjects. A human PPAR
splice variant (PPAR
tr) lacking exon 6 (resulting in deletion of part of the hinge region and the entire LBD) has been reported, comprising 2050% of native PPAR
in some human cells. Although this splice variant was unable to bind DNA, it was able to exert dominant-negative activity after forced nuclear localization (24).
To explore PPAR-mediated dominant-negative activity further, we exploited a strategy previously successfully employed for PPAR
(5) to create a powerful artificial dominant-negative PPAR
(PPAR
mut) by mutagenesis to alanine of two residues in the activation function 2 domain that critically regulate coactivator recruitment. Analysis of the structure of liganded PPAR
bound to coactivator peptide (PDB 1K7L) (25) (Fig. 10
) provides support for this strategy as applied to PPAR
. Thus, glutamate 462 makes two hydrogen bonds to backbone amides in the coactivator helix and complements the N-terminal-positive charge of the helix dipole. This charge clamp in the wild-type molecule anchors the amphipathic, helical LXXLL motifs of many coactivators, thereby orienting the helices and apposing hydrophobic interaction surfaces on coregulatory molecules and nuclear receptor (26). Second, leucine 459 forms part of closely packed nonpolar interaction with helices 3 and 12 and the helical LXXLL coactivator motif. Interrupting both the charge clamp and hydrophobic coactivator-binding pocket would be predicted to have a marked destabilizing influence on the PPAR
-coactivator interaction.

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FIG. 10. Location of L459 and E462 in the three-dimensional crystal structure of PPAR complexed to a chemical agonist and coactivator peptide (PDB 1K7L).
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Both the previously described double-mutant PPAR
(PPAR
mut) and PPAR
mut act as constitutive repressors in the basal state, exhibit strong dominant-negative inhibition of transcriptional activation by their wild-type counterpart in response to a specific ligand, and recruit NCoR and SMRT avidly. However, the corepressor association was significantly more attenuated by ligand in the case of PPAR
mut than PPAR
mut. In the same system, wild-type PPAR
interacted with both SMRT and NCoR (5), whereas no association was seen in this study for wild-type PPAR
. This suggests that, whereas the double mutation in each case enhances corepressor interaction, the baseline levels of corepressor recruitment of the two receptors differ. Whether this is due to intrinsic differences in corepressor binding of the unliganded receptors or rather due to different degrees of receptor occupancy by endogenous ligand remains undetermined (5). The failure of PGC1
to augment transcriptional activation by cotransfected PPAR
mut is consistent with structural predictions (Fig. 10
) and provides evidence that, as for PPAR
mut, the dominant-negative activity of PPAR
mut is due to impaired coactivator recruitment in the liganded state as well as enhanced corepressor association.
NCoR and SMRT possess a bipartite nuclear receptor interaction domain, which permits binding to specific residues in the hydrophobic pocket of nuclear receptors. Ligand binding, by establishing the charge clamp, introduces steric constraints on the length of helix that can be accommodated in the hydrophobic pocket, resulting in dissociation of corepressors with their longer helical interaction domain and binding of the smaller LXXLL-containing domain of coactivators (27, 28, 29). Not only has the crystal structure of a PPAR
-agonist-coactivator complex been described but, uniquely to date among nuclear hormone receptors, the PPAR
structure in complex with a chemical antagonist and a corepressor peptide from SMRT (30). However, how these well-delineated interactions relate to transcriptional regulation by PPARs in a cellular context is less clear. Although unliganded nuclear receptors such as thyroid hormone receptor and RAR are known to recruit corepressors in the absence of exogenous ligand, whether PPARs do so in vivo is contentious. Ligand-dissociable interaction between PPAR
and NCoR has been shown in a yeast two-hybrid assay, and cotransfection studies in human embryonic kidney 293 cells have shown NCoR to suppress the constitutive reporter activity seen in the presence of PPAR
and RXR, this repression being alleviated by specific ligand dose dependently (31). However, consistent with our results, PPAR
-Gal4 fusion proteins have been shown to attenuate transcriptional activation by Gal4 in yeast but not mammalian cells (32), and it has not proved possible to detect either DNA-bound PPAR
-RXR-NCoR or PPAR
-RXR-SMRT complexes (32). Our failure to detect an interaction between NCoR or SMRT and the wild-type PPAR
LBD in a mammalian two-hybrid system adds to these conflicting data.
It is possible that these discrepant results are explained by variable levels of endogenous PPAR
ligand in different cell types. It may be that in some cells the generation of low levels of intracellular ligand means that native PPAR
is never truly in the unliganded state, so that helix 12 is always in an active conformation, precluding corepressor interaction. Leu459Ala and Glu462Ala double mutation may mimic the binding of a chemical antagonist, destabilizing helix 12, and strongly promoting corepressor interaction, even in the presence of endogenous ligand. However, as shown in Fig. 3
, potent exogenous ligand retains the ability to promote dissociation of PPAR
mut from corepressors in the two-hybrid system.
The dominant-negative activity of PPAR
mut was shown on an artificial PPRE and native robustly PPAR
-responsive promoters in both HepG2 cells and rat primary hepatocytes, establishing that PPAR
mut is a potent dominant-negative inhibitor of PPAR
wt on endogenous promoters, even in primary culture in which PPAR
expression levels are high. Similarly, concerns that cross-inhibition of PPAR
and PPAR
by PPAR
mut was due only to the use of a minimum artificial PPRE and that, in a more natural promoter context, selectivity would be exhibited were addressed by examining the effect of PPAR
mut expression on lipid accumulation and the induction of aP2 expression during differentiation of 3T3-L1 preadipocytes in the presence of a potent PPAR
ligand (Fig. 9
). Despite reports that the aP2 enhancer PPRE, which mediates activation by PPAR
, is the most PPAR
-selective of a raft of PPREs examined in vitro (33), expression of PPAR
mut was sufficient to block both aP2 transcriptional up-regulation and lipid accumulation. Together with our demonstration that PPAR
mut also severely attenuates the transcriptional response to a PPAR
ligand in HepG2 cells, this suggests that the lack of selectivity of the mutant receptors inhibitory activity may be generalizable to specific responses mediated by all three PPARs. Moreover reexamination of the properties of PPAR
mut showed that it, too, is not PPAR selective with regard to suppression of PPAR-mediated transcriptional responses from endogenous promoters, albeit to a lesser extent than PPAR
mut. Although the lack of specificity using adenoviral delivery of the mutant PPARs could be attributed to high levels of expression from the constitutive CMV promoter in the viral vectors, a similar lack of specificity was seen in cotransfection experiments with stoichiometric levels of expression of wild-type and mutant receptors.
The lack of selectivity of the artificial PPAR mutants described here may also have pathophysiological relevance for human subjects harboring dominant-negative PPAR
mutations, which are believed to exhibit mechanistically similar, albeit less potent, dominant-negative effects (3, 4). Indeed, before loss of PPAR
signaling alone can be deemed to be the cause of the severe metabolic syndrome seen in subjects harboring dominant-negative PPAR
mutations, it must be established whether dominant-negative inhibition by these naturally occurring mutants can spill over onto other PPARs. Evidence for such inhibitory cross-talk is also provided by a recent study of wild-type PPAR
, which, in the unliganded state, was shown to inhibit PPAR
and PPAR
action, probably due to occupancy of the relevant PPAR response elements allied to its greater affinity for SMRT and perhaps other corepressors (32). Thus, it is conceivable that in some or all of the tissues in which the receptor isoforms are coexpressed, cross-inhibition of PPAR
and/or PPAR
signaling by a mutant PPAR
with an aberrant affinity for corepressor may occur.
In summary, we have generated and characterized a double-mutant PPAR
with potent dominant-negative activity toward its wild-type counterpart due to enhanced corepressor recruitment and impaired interaction with coactivators. The mutant receptor exhibits dominant-negative activity both in cotransfection reporter assays and when tested against endogenous PPAR responses in cell culture, and this inhibition is manifest against all three PPAR isoforms. This is also true of the previously reported analogous dominant-negative PPAR
mutant, which may have implications for the pathogenesis of the metabolic syndrome seen in human subjects harboring dominant-negative PPAR
mutations.
 |
Footnotes
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|---|
R.K.S. was supported by a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Training Fellowship and the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation. A.M. was supported by a Marie Curie fellowship.
First Published Online January 20, 2005
1 R.K.S. and A.M. contributed equally to this work. 
Abbreviations: aP2, Adipocyte fatty acid binding protein 4; CMV, cytomegalovirus; CPT1, carnitine palmitoyl transferase 1; DBD, DNA binding domain; DM, differentiation medium; FBS, fetal bovine serum; GAPDH, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase; GFP, green fluorescent protein; LBD, ligand-binding domain; MOI, multiplicity of infection; mut, mutation; NCoR, nuclear receptor corepressor; PDK, pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase; pFAO, peroxisomal fatty acyl-coenzyme A oxidase; PFU, plaque-forming unit; PGC1, PPAR-
coactivator 1; PPAR, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor; PPRE, peroxisome proliferator response element; RAR, retinoic acid receptor; RXR, retinoid X receptor; SMRT, silencing mediator of retinoid and thyroid receptor; wt, wild type.
Received October 25, 2004.
Accepted for publication January 12, 2005.
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