Stress induced subcellular distribution of ALG-2, RBM22 and hSlu7

ALG-2 is a highly conserved calcium binding protein in the cytoplasm which belongs to the family of penta-EF hand proteins. Recently, we showed that ALG-2 is interacting with RBM22, a highly conserved spliceosomal nuclear protein (Montaville et al. Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1763, 1335, 2006; Krebs, Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1793, 979, 2009). In NIH 3T3 cells expressing both proteins a significant amount of ALG-2mRFP is translocated to the nucleus due to the interaction with RBM22-EGFP. hSlu7, another spliceosomal nuclear protein, known to interact with RBM22 in yeast, has been shown to translocate to the cytoplasm under cellular stress conditions. Here we provide evidence that the 2 spliceosomal proteins differ significantly in their subcellular distributions under stress conditions, and that RBM22 enhances the cytoplasmic translocation of hSlu7 under stress, especially a stress induced by thapsigargin. On the other hand, in NIH 3T3 cells expressing RBM22-EGFP and ALG-2-mRFP, ALG-2 remains translocated into the nucleus under both stress conditions, i.e. heat shock or treatment with thapsigargin. We could further demonstrate that these stress conditions had a different influence on the splicing pattern of XBP-1, a marker for the unfolded protein response indicating that ER stress may play a role in stress-induced translocation of spliceosomal proteins. The article is part of a Special Issue entitled: 11th European Symposium on Calcium.