Author response: Actin dynamics tune the integrated stress response by regulating eukaryotic initiation factor 2α dephosphorylation

For a cell to build a protein, it must first copy the instructions contained within a gene. A complex molecular machine called a ribosome then reads these instructions and translates them into a protein. This translation process involves a number of steps. Proteins called eukaryotic translation initiation factors (or eIFs for short) coordinate the first step in the process, which is known as ‘initiation’. The eIFs also provide the cell with ways to control how quickly it makes proteins. For example, when a cell is stressed, either by starvation or toxins, it adds a phosphate group onto part of an eIF protein, called eIF2α. This modification makes this eIF protein less able to initiate translation, and so the cell builds fewer proteins and conserves more of its resources during times of stress. Once the stressful conditions are over, the phosphate group is removed from eIF2α by an enzyme called a phosphatase. This phosphatase contains two subunits: one that recognizes eIF2α and another that removes the phosphate group. However, experiments that attempted to recreate this phosphatase activity using just these two subunits in a test tube failed to generate a working enzyme that specifically targeted the phosphate group of eIF2α. This suggests that in cells this enzyme contains an additional unknown subunit. Now, Chambers, Dalton et al. (and Chen et al.) report the identity of a ‘missing’ third subunit as a protein known as globular-actin or G-actin. Chambers, Dalton et al. engineered human and fruit fly cells to add ‘molecular handles’ on the two known subunits of the phosphatase enzyme. These handles could then be used to essentially pull these proteins out of the mixture of molecules within a cell and see what other proteins came along too. Both of the known subunits ‘pulled’ G-actin along with them; this suggested that it could be the missing part of the phosphatase enzyme. Further experiments confirmed that G-actin works together with the other two subunits to specifically remove the phosphate group from eIF2α in mouse cells that had been stressed using a harmful chemical. Individual G-actin proteins can bind together to form long filaments, and signals that encourage a cell to divide or move also trigger the formation of actin filaments. This reduces the activity of the phosphatase enzyme by depriving it of a crucial component, i.e., free G-actin proteins. As such, the new mechanism described by Chambers, Dalton et al. suggests how growth and movement signals might also change a cell's sensitivity to stress. These findings may hopefully enable stressed cells to be targeted by drugs to treat disease; but future work is needed to clarify under what circumstances the integration of such signals into the stress response is beneficial to the cell.

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