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Date of Award

2006

Document Type

Dissertation - Pacific Access Restricted

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Department

Pharmaceutical and Chemical Sciences

First Advisor

William K. Chan

First Committee Member

Craig A. Vierra

Second Committee Member

David Thomas

Third Committee Member

Timothy J. Smith

Fourth Committee Member

Roshanak Rahimian

Abstract

In an effort to better understand the Ah receptor nuclear translocator (Arnt)-dependent signaling mechanisms, we employed a phage display system to identify Arnt-interacting peptides. Human liver cDNA library was utilized to screen for Arnt-interacting peptides using an Arnt construct fused to thioredoxin (TH-ArntCΔ418). Two clones, namely Ainp1 and Ainp2 (Arnt-interacting peptide), were identified and subsequently characterized. Ainp2 interacted with TH-ArntCΔ418 in the GST pull-down, TALON co-precipitation, and mammalian two-hybrid assays. Northern blot results revealed that Ainp2 is predominantly expressed in human liver. The putative full-length Ainp2 cDNA sequence was subsequently cloned using RACE PCR. Endogenous expression of Ainp2 was found in Jurkat cells and human fetal/adult liver medleys. Results from the transient transfection studies using a DRE- or ERE-driven reporter plasmid and the real-time QPCR experiments examining the endogenous CYP1A1 or GREB-1 expression demonstrated that Ainp2 enhances the 3MC-induced AhR signaling pathway in HepG2 cells, while suppresses the E2-induced ER signaling pathway in MCF-7 cells. These results suggested that Ainp2 plays a role in the Arnt-dependent signaling pathways. The suppressive effect of Ainp2 in the ER signaling pathway was not observed in Arnt-knockdown cells. Additionally, co-precipitation data showed that Ainp2 did not interact with ER α and ER β, suggesting that Ainp2 suppresses the ER signaling via an Arnt-mediated mechanism. The phage display technique also revealed another potential Arnt-interacting peptide Ainp1, which contains an open reading frame of 58 amino acids. The GST pull-down and mammalian two-hybrid assays showed that Ainp1 interacts with TH-ArntCΔ418. Northern blot results demonstrated that Ainp1 is ubiquitously present in all the tested tissues, including brain, placenta, skeletal muscle, heart, kidney, pancreas, liver, lung, spleen, and colon.

Pages

207

ISBN

9780542897641

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