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TGF-β Ligand Cross-Subfamily Interactions in the Response of Caenorhabditis elegans to Bacterial Pathogens
Open accessPreprint — published as 10.1371/journal.pgen.1011324 · Paper page
Abstract
The Transforming Growth Factor beta (TGF-β) family consists of numerous secreted peptide growth factors that play significant roles in cell function, tissue patterning, and organismal homeostasis, including wound repair and immunity. Typically studied as homodimers, these ligands have the potential to diversify their functions through ligand interactions that are synergistic, cooperative, additive, and/or antagonistic. In the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans , there are only five TGF-β ligands, providing an opportunity to dissect ligand interactions in fewer combinations than in vertebrates. As in vertebrates, these ligands can be divided into bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) and TGF-β/Activin subfamilies that predominantly signal through discrete signaling pathways. The BMP subfamily ligand DBL-1 has been well studied for its role in the innate immune response in C. elegans . Here we show that all five TGF-β ligands play a role in the immune response. We also demonstrate that multiple TGF-β ligands act cooperatively as part of this response. We show that the two BMP-like ligands – DBL-1 and TIG-2 – function independently of each other in the immune response, while TIG-2/BMP and the TGF-β/Activin-like ligand TIG-3 function cooperatively. Structural modeling supports the potential for TIG-2 and TIG-3 to form heterodimers. Finally, we show that canonical DBL-1/BMP receptor and Smad signal transducers function in the response to bacterial pathogens, while components of the DAF-7 TGF-β/Activin signaling pathway do not play a role in survival. These results demonstrate a novel potential for BMP and TGF-β/Activin subfamily ligands to interact, and may provide a mechanism for distinguishing the developmental and homeostatic functions of these ligands from an acute response such as the innate immune response to bacterial pathogens.
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![Fig 6 AlphaFold2-Multimer Structural Modeling of TIG-2 and TIG-3 Mature Ligand Homo- and Heterodimer Complexes. Left complex: 3D structures are colored by pLDDT confidence score with deep blue corresponding to regions of very high confidence and orange representing regions of very low confidence or disorder. Right complex: The mature dimer as in the left panel but colored by monomer and following geometric rotation. All cysteine residues (underlined) in mature TIG-2 (with 15–81, 44–113, 48–115 disulfides) and TIG-3 (with 22–26, 25–82, 54–114, 59–116 disulfides) homo- and heterodimers are paired in intrachain disulfide bonds (gold) within the cystine knot domain. The cysteine residue that forms the interchain disulfide bond in the mature dimer is absent in TIG-2 and TIG-3, similar to GDF3, GDF9, and BMP15 [52]. Interestingly, lysine (yellow-green), with its reactive ε-amino group upon deprotonation, is instead substituted for this cysteine residue in both TIG-2 (Lys80) and TIG-3 (Lys81). Amino Acid Sequence: Residues are colored by pLDDT score. The monomer interface tracks consist of confidently predicted dimer-interface contacts (see Methods). (A) Mature TIG-2(purple)/TIG-2(lavender) exhibits high confidence with respect to per-residue structural modeling (pLDDT: 92.7), pairwise residue alignment confidence (pTM: 0.868), and dimeric interaction confidence (ipTM: 0.875). (B) Mature TIG-2(purple)/TIG-3(gray-beige) is confidently modeled regarding its structure and potential for dimerization (pLDDT: 84.9, pTM: 0.798, ipTM: 0.783). (C) Mature TIG-3(brown)/TIG-3(gray-beige) falls slightly below (pLDDT: 68.8) the threshold for a confident structure prediction (pLDDT ≥ 70), and its predicted ability to homodimerize is very low (ipTM: 0.288). Additionally, no confidently predicted (pTM: 0.522) interface residues exist between TIG-3 monomers.](/paper-figures/215d7fc0869c4a919c175cb37f3138e4/tgf-ligand-cross-subfamily-interactions-in-the-response-of-i-caenorhabditis-figure-6.jpg)

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Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold
Jumper, J., Evans, R., Pritzel, A., Green, T., Figurnov, M., Ronneberger, O., Tunyasuvunakool, K., Bates, R., Žídek, A., Potapenko, A., et al. (2021) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-021-03819-2 · Cited by 43,764
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Metadata
- Authors
- Ciccarelli, E. J., Wing, Z., Bendelstein, M., Johal, R. K., Singh, G., Monas, A., & Savage-Dunn, C.
- Affiliations
- Queens College, CUNY (US)
- ORCID
- Savage-Dunn, Cathy
- Venue
- PLoS Genetics
- Publisher
- openRxiv
- Published
- 2023-05-08
- Volume
- 20
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- e1011324-e1011324
- ISSN
- 1553-7390 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC11210861
- OpenAlex
- W4399666038
- Cited by
- 7
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2025: 4 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 1
- FWCI
- 0.81
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- PLoS Genetics (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (OD010440, P40OD010440)
- National Institute on Aging (R21AG075315)
- National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R15GM112147)
- Office of Research Infrastructure Programs, National Institutes of Health (P40OD010440)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › TGF-β signaling in diseases
- Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Immunology › Invertebrate Immune Response Mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Immunology › Immune Response and Inflammation
- Keywords
- TGF-beta ligands, Caenorhabditis elegans, innate immunity, DBL-1, BMP signaling, TGF-beta/activin signaling, daf-7, Smad signaling
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