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Previous studies on the assembly of progesterone receptor (PR) complexes in vitro have suggested that PR assembly is a dynamic, ordered process involving at least eight nonreceptor proteins. One of these proteins, p60, appears transiently during assembly and is not a component of functionally mature PR complexes. In the present study we observe that a monoclonal antibody specific for p60 can, on the one hand, inhibit formation of mature PR complexes containing heat shock protein 90 (hsp90), p23, and immunophilins and, on the other, enhance recovery of early PR complexes containing hsp70 and Hip (p48). This observation supports a model in which p60 functions at an intermediate stage of PR assembly to facilitate formation of subsequent PR complexes lacking p60. Since p60 is typically found in a complex with hsp90 and hsp70, we have further characterized its interactions with these proteins. P60 can bind either hsp70 or hsp90 independently and in an ATP-independent manner. Since hsp90 and hsp70 do not readily associate on their own, it appears that p60 is the central organizing component of an hsp90-p60-hsp70 complex. Mutational analysis of p60 indicates that the N terminus is required for hsp70 binding, and a central region containing tetratricopeptide repeat motifs is necessary for binding hsp90 and hsp70. The hsp90-p60-hsp70 multichaperone complex is highly dynamic and does not appear to be affected by the hsp90-binding drug geldanamycin. The interactions of hsp70 and hsp90 in intermediate PR complexes are shown to be distinct from their separate interactions in early PR complexes (hsp70) or in mature PR complexes (hsp90). From these results, it appears that p60 is a key mediator in the chaperoned assembly and functional maturation of PR complexes.
Chen et al. (Sat,) studied this question.