Fabrizio Bolognese

Rett syndrome (RTT) is a severe neurodevelopmental disorder almost exclusively affecting females and characterized by a wide spectrum of clinical manifestations. Most patients affected by classic RTT and a smaller percentage of patients with the milder form 'preserved speech variant' have either point mutations or deletions/duplications in the MECP2 gene. Recently, mutations in the CDKL5 gene, coding for a putative kinase, have been found in female patients with a phenotype overlapping with that of RTT. Here, we report two patients with the early seizure variant of RTT, bearing two novel CDKL5 truncating mutations, strengthening the correlation between CDKL5 and RTT. Considering the similar phenotypes caused by mutations in MECP2 and CDKL5, it has been suggested that the two genes play a role in common pathogenic processes. We show here that CDKL5 is a nuclear protein whose expression in the nervous system overlaps with that of MeCP2, during neural maturation and synaptogenesis. Importantly, we demonstrate that MeCP2 and CDKL5 interact both in vivo and in vitro and that CDKL5 is indeed a kinase, which is able to phosphorylate itself and to mediate MeCP2 phosphorylation, suggesting that they belong to the same molecular pathway. Furthermore, this paper contributes to the clarification of the phenotype associated with CDKL5 mutations and indicates that CDKL5 should be analyzed in each patient showing a clinical course similar to RTT but characterized by a lack of an early normal period due to the presence of seizures.

p63 is a transcription factor structurally related to the p53 tumor suppressor. The C-terminal region differs from p53's in that it contains a sterile alpha motif (SAM) domain and is subject to multiple alternative splicings. The N-terminal region is present in the transactivation (TA) and DeltaN configurations, with the latter lacking the transcriptional activation domain 1. Single amino acid substitutions and frameshift mutations of p63 cause the human ankyloblepharon ectodermal dysplasia clefting (AEC) or ectrodactyly ectodermal dysplasia and facial clefting (EEC) syndromes. We have systematically compared the activities of the wild-type p63 isoforms and of the natural mutants in activation and repression assays on three promoters modulated by p53. We found that p63 proteins with an altered SAM domain or no SAM domain-the beta isoforms, the EEC frameshift mutant, and the missense AEC mutations-all showed a distinctly higher level of activation of the MDM2 promoter and decreased repression on the HSP70 promoter. Fusion of SAM to the GAL4 DNA-binding domain repressed a heterologous promoter. A second activation domain, TA2, corresponding to exons 11 to 12, was uncovered by comparing the activation of DeltaN isoforms on natural promoters and in GAL4 fusion systems. In colony formation assays, the AEC mutants, but not the EEC frameshift, were consistently less efficient in suppressing growth, in both the TA version and the DeltaN version, with respect to their p63alpha counterparts. These data highlight the modularity of p63, identifying the SAM domain as a dominant transcriptional repression module and indicating that the AEC and EEC frameshift mutants are characterized by a subversion of the p63 transcriptional potential.

In order to study the toluene and o-xylene catabolic genes of Pseudomonas stutzeri OX1, a genomic library was constructed. A 28-kb EcoRI restriction endonuclease DNA fragment, cloned into the vector plasmid pLAFR1 and designated pFB3401, permitted Pseudomonas putida PaW340 to convert toluene and o-xylene into the corresponding meta-ring fission products. Physical and functional endonuclease restriction maps have been derived from the cloned DNA fragment. Further subcloning into and deletion analysis in the Escherichia coli vector pGEM-3Z allowed the genes for the conversion of toluene or o-xylene into the corresponding catechols to be mapped within a 6-kb region of the pFB3401 insert and their direction of transcription to be determined. Following exposure to toluene, E. coli cells carrying this 6-kb region produce a mixture of o-cresol, m-cresol, and p-cresol, which are further converted to 3-methylcatechol and 4-methylcatechol. Similarly, a mixture of 2,3-dimethylphenol and 3,4-dimethylphenol, further converted into dimethylcatechols, was detected after exposure to o-xylene. The enzyme involved in the first step of toluene and o-xylene degradation exhibited a broad substrate specificity, being able to oxidize also benzene, ethylbenzene, m-xylene, p-xylene, styrene, and naphthalene. Deletions of the 6-kb region which affect the ability to convert toluene or o-xylene into the corresponding methylphenols compromise also their further oxidation to methylcatechols. This suggests that a single enzyme system could be involved in both steps of the early stages of toluene and o-xylene catabolism.