Nuclear SUMOylation and Proteotoxic Stress Responses to Metals with Different Ligand Preferences

Proteins are vulnerable to damage by a broad range of electrophiles, and cells contain several proteotoxic stress-monitoring systems. Main transcriptional responses to protein damage are driven by cytosolic HSF1 and NRF2 using soft nucleophile Cys-SH as sensors of electrophiles. It is unclear what stress responses are activated by poorly SH-reactive hard electrophiles. We examined protein damage responses in normal human lung cells with equitoxic doses of three carcinogenic metals with different electrophilic softness: soft, cadmium(II), intermediate, cobalt(II), and hard, chromium(III) delivered into cells using chromium(VI)/chromate. Cd(II) strongly activated cytosolic NRF2 and HSF1, produced soluble and insoluble polyubiquitinated proteins in the cytosol, and moderately elevated ER and mitochondrial unfolded protein responses and nuclear polySUMOylation. Cr(III) primarily induced nuclear protein damage and polySUMOylation and was negative for the activation of all cytoplasmic stress responses. Co(II) triggered HSF1, NRF2, and other responses seen with both Cr(III) and Cd(II) except for cytosolic polyubiquitin aggregates. Physiological levels of the antioxidant ascorbate inhibited but did not eliminate NRF2 activation by Co(II) and enhanced polySUMOylation by Cr(VI/III). For all three metals, SUMOylated proteins accumulated in nuclear PML bodies, and their formation was suppressed by PML knockdown. Inhibition of SUMOylation decreased transcription and, even more severely, protein expression of NRF2 and HSF1 targets by Cd(II) and Co(II), revealing the importance of this nuclear response in the functionality of cytosolic stress-activated pathways. Our findings demonstrate that soft and hard metal electrophiles elicit distinct proteotoxic stress responses, with the notable inability of the hard electrophile Cr(III) to trigger cytosolic damage-monitoring systems.