Regulation of Stat1 protein expression by phenylalanine 172 in the coiled-coil domain

Stat1 plays an essential role in signal transduction and gene expression of various cytokines including interferons (IFNs). Although the mechanism of cytokine-induced activation of Stat1 and transcriptional regulation of Stat1 gene expression have been established, post-transcriptional regulation of Stat1 protein expression is not fully understood. Here, we report identification of a mutant of Stat1 that has decreased expression levels by using inducible translocation trap (ITT), a reporter gene-based detection system of nuclear translocation. The substitution of serine for phenylalanine 172 (F172S) in the coiled-coil domain causes marked decrease in Stat1 protein expression in various cell lines without decreasing its mRNA levels. Our results suggest that the decrease is caused by translational/post-translational mechanisms independent of proteasome machinery. These results suggest a novel potential mechanism of determination of specificity of Stat proteins and showed that the ITT system is a powerful technique to identify mutants of nuclear translocating signal transducers. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.