Prohibitin1 acts as a neural crest specifier in Xenopus development by repressing the transcription factor E2F1

Prohibitin 1 (phb1), which was initially described as an inhibitor of cell proliferation, is a highly conserved protein found in multiple cellular compartments. In the nucleus it interacts with the transcriptional regulators Rb and E2F1 and controls cell proliferation and apoptosis. Here we unravel an unexpected novel function for phb1 in Xenopus cranial neural crest (CNC) development. Xphb1 is maternally expressed; zygotically expressed neurula stage transcripts accumulate in the CNC and the neural tube. Knockdown of Xphb1 by antisense morpholino injection results in the loss of foxD3, snail2 and twist expression, whereas expression of c-myc, AP-2 and snail1 remains unaffected. Xphb2, its closest relative, cannot substitute for Xphb1, underlining the specificity of Xphb1 function. Epistatic analyses place Xphb1 downstream of c-myc and upstream of foxD3, snail2 and twist. To elucidate which subdomain in Xphb1 is required for neural crest gene regulation we generated deletion mutants and tested their rescue ability in Xphb1 morphants. The E2F1-binding domain was found to be necessary for Xphb1 function in neural crest development. Gain-and loss-of-function experiments reveal that Xphb1 represses E2F1 activity; suppression of E2F1 through Xphb1 is required for twist, snail2 and foxD3 expression in the CNC. With the Xphb1 dependency of a subset of CNC specifiers downstream of c-myc, we have identified a new branching point in the neural crest gene regulatory network.