C-terminal interaction of translational release factors eRF1 and eRF3 of fission yeast: G-domain uncoupled binding and the role of conserved amino acids

Translation termination in eukaryotes requires a stop codon-responsive (class-l) release factor, eRF1, and a guanine nucleotide-responsive (class-II) release factor, eRF3. Schizosaccharomyces pombe eRF3 has an N-terminal polypeptide similar in size to the prion-like domain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae eRF3 in addition to the EF-1 alpha-like catalytic domain. By in vivo two-hybrid assay as well as by an in vitro purl-down analysis using purified proteins of S. pombe as well as of S. cerevisiae, eRF1 bound to the C-terminal one-third domain of eRF3, named eRF3C, but not to the N-terminal two-thirds, which was inconsistent with the previous report by Paushkin et al. (1997, Mol Cell Biol 17:2798-2805). The activity of S. pombe eRF3 in eRF1 binding was affected by Ala substitutions for the C-terminal residues conserved not only in eRF3s but also in elongation factors EF-Tu and EF-1 alpha. These single mutational defects in the eRF1-eRF3 interaction became evident when either truncated protein eRF3C or C-terminally altered eRF1 proteins were used for the authentic protein, providing further support for the presence of a C-terminal interaction. Given that eRF3 is an EF-Tu/EF-1 alpha homolog required for translation termination, the apparent dispensability of the N-terminal domain of eRF3 for binding to eRF1 is in contrast to importance, direct or indirect, in EF-TU/EF-1 alpha for binding to aminoacyl-tRNA, although both eRF3 and EF-Tu/EF-1 alpha share some common amino acids for binding to eRF1 and aminoacyl-tRNA, respectively. These differences probably reflect the independence of eRF1 binding in relation to the G-domain function of eRF3 (i.e., probably uncoupled with GTP hydrolysis), whereas aminoacyl-tRNA binding depends on that of EF-Tu/EF-1 alpha (i.e., coupled with GTP hydrolysis), which sheds some light on the mechanism of eRF3 function.