Nuclear phospholipase C gamma: punctate distribution and association with the promyelocytic leukemia protein

The marriage between transducers of cell stress stimuli and their nuclear targets is likely to be achieved in part by some spatial-temporal compartmentalization of the relevant effectors. A candidate compartment for these events is the promyelocytic leukemia nuclear domain (PML-ND), within which are found numerous effectors of damage recognition, repair, and cell death. We predicted that the identification of PML-ND cargo proteins would clarify those biochemical pathways that straddle the recognition of cellular damage and cell fate. We now use mass spectrometry of peptides eluted from PML coprecipitates to demonstrate that the gamma 1 (gamma1) isoform of PLC associates with nuclear PML. Though thought to act primarily in the cytoplasm, we use biochemical fractionation combined with immunocytochemistry to verify the nuclear expression of PLC-gamma1 and its interaction with PML. These are the first data to show an interaction between endogenous levels of a phosphoinositide metabolizing protein and the biophysically labile PML-ND by mass spectrometry and add weight to the view that PML-NDs may act as tumor suppressors by sequestering mitogenic effectors.