Acetyl-Coenzyme A acyltransferase 2 attenuates the apoptotic effects of BNIP3 in two human cell lines

BNIP3 is a unique pro-apoptotic protein which belongs to the BH3-only subset of the Bcl-2 family and localizes on mitochondrial membrane. Despite the inherent difficulty of identifying binding partners for membrane proteins, several binding partners for BNIP3 have been identified. In this study, a modified split-ubiquitin membrane yeast two-hybrid system was constructed and used to identify acetyl-Coenzyme A acyltransferase 2 (ACAA2) as a new BNIP3 binding partner. The interaction between BNIP3 and ACAA2 was confirmed by pull-down and co-immunoprecipitation assays. ACAA2 was also found to co-localize with BNIP3 in mitochondria. Furthermore, the apoptosis induced by over-expressed BNIP3 via transfection or hypoxia treatment was abolished by ACAA2 in human hepatocellular carcinoma HepG2 cells and osteosarcoma U-2 OS cells. These results strongly suggest that ACAA2 be a functional BNIP3 binding partner and provide a possible linkage between fatty acid metabolism and apoptosis of cells.