A chaperone-like function of FUS ensures TAZ condensates dynamics and transcriptional activation

ABSTRACT: The Hippo pathway plays important roles in organ development, tissue homeostasis, and tumor growth, and its downstream effector TAZ is a transcriptional coactivator that promotes target gene expression through the formation of biomolecular condensates. However, the mechanisms that regulate the biophysical properties of TAZ condensates to enable Hippo signaling are not well understood. Here, using chemical cross-linking combined with an unbiased proteomic approach, we show that FUS associates with TAZ condensates and exerts a chaperone-like effect to maintain their proper liquidity and robust- transcriptional activity. Mechanistically, the low complexity sequence domain of FUS targets the coiled-coil domain of TAZ in a phosphorylation-regulated manner, which ensures the liquidity and dynamicity of TAZ condensates. In cells lacking FUS, TAZ condensates transition into gel/solid-like assembles with immobilized TAZ, leading to reduced expression of target genes and inhibition of pro-tumorigenic activity. Thus, our findings identify a chaperone-like function of FUS in Hippo regulation and demonstrate that appropriate biophysical properties of transcriptional condensates are essential for gene activation.

ORGANISM(S): Homo Sapiens

SUBMITTER: Huasong Lu  

PROVIDER: PXD040257 | iProX | Fri Feb 17 00:00:00 GMT 2023

REPOSITORIES: iProX