期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2021
卷号：118
期号：37
DOI：10.1073/pnas.2104577118
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：Significance
Diphthamide is a posttranslational modification that has been known since the 1970s. It is conserved in all eukaryotic cells, and its biosynthesis requires at least seven proteins. However, its exact biological function has remained unclear. Our results demonstrate that diphthamide promotes target of rapamycin (TOR) signaling by promoting the translation of two proteins in the target of rapamycin complex 1 (TORC1) pathway that contain slippery sequences in their messenger RNA (mRNA). Our finding explained why diphthamide is evolutionarily conserved and why it is crucial in animal development. Our results also suggest that regulating the translation of slippery sequences by diphthamide could be a widely used mechanism to tune translation in eukaryotes, which is different from the recoding hypothesis.
Diphthamide, a modification found only on translation elongation factor 2 (EF2), was proposed to suppress −1 frameshifting in translation. Although diphthamide is conserved among all eukaryotes, exactly what proteins are affected by diphthamide deletion is not clear in cells. Through genome-wide profiling for a potential −1 frameshifting site, we identified that the target of rapamycin complex 1 (TORC1)/mammalian TORC1 (mTORC1) signaling pathway is affected by deletion of diphthamide. Diphthamide deficiency in yeast suppresses the translation of TORC1-activating proteins Vam6 and Rtc1. Interestingly, TORC1 signaling also promotes diphthamide biosynthesis, suggesting that diphthamide forms a positive feedback loop to promote translation under nutrient-rich conditions. Our results provide an explanation for why diphthamide is evolutionarily conserved and why diphthamide deletion can cause severe developmental defects.
