A novel F box protein, NFB42, is highly enriched in neurons and induces growth arrest

NFB42 (neural F Box 42 kDa) is a novel gene product that is highly enriched in the nervous system. Its predicted protein contains an F box, a motif recently shown to couple cell cycle regulation to the proteasome pathway (Bai, C., Sen, P., Hofmann, K., Ma, L., Goebl, M., Harper, J. W., and Elledge, S. (1996) Cell 86, 263-274). NFB42 mRNA and protein are expressed in all major areas of the adult rat brain but are not detected in non-neural tissues. NFB42 protein is localized primarily to the cytoplasm of neurons and does not appear to be present in glia. The presence of an F box in NFB42 suggests that it may be involved in cell cycle regulation; however, its expression in postmitotic neurons indicates that it is not involved in regulating typical cell cycle events. In an initial attempt to characterize the function of this protein, NFB42 was transfected into N1E-115 neuroblastoma and Chinese hamster ovary cells. The expression of full-length NFB42, but not an F box deletion mutant, inhibits proliferation in both cell lines. Additional experiments demonstrate that NFB42 interacts with Skp1p, a component of the proteasome pathway, and deletion of the F box also inhibits this interaction. Overall, the expression pattern of NFB42, along with the presence of an F box domain and the ability to inhibit growth, suggests that it may play a role in maintaining neurons in a postmitotic state.