RSK2-mediated cGAS phosphorylation induces cGAS chromatin-incorporation-mediated cell transformation and cancer cell colony growth

Cyclic guanosine-adenosine monophosphate synthase (cGAS) is a key cytosolic DNA sensor that plays a pivotal role in the innate immune response. Although a decade of research on the cGAS has advanced our understanding of inflammasome formation, cytokine production, and signaling pathways, the role of cGAS in the nucleus remains unclear. In this study, we found that the nuclear localization of endogenous and stably expressed cGAS differed from transiently expressed cGAS, which mainly localized in the cytosol. In the nucleus, cGAS is tightly bound to chromatin DNA. The chromatin DNA binding of cGAS was dependent on RSK2. Our molecular mechanism study indicated that the N-lobe of RSK2 harboring 1–323 interacted with the NTase domain of cGAS harboring residues 213–330. This interaction increased RSK2-induced cGAS phosphorylation at Ser120 and Thr130, resulting in the tightly binding of cGAS to chromatin. Importantly, epidermal growth factor (EGF)-induced cell transformation and anchorage-independent colony growth showed an increase in growth factors, such as EGF or bFGF, in cGAS stable expression compared to mock expression. Notably, the cGAS-S120A/T130A mutant abolished the increasing effect of cell transformation of JB6 Cl41 cells and colony growth of SK-MEL-2 malignant melanoma cells. The results suggested that cGAS’s chromatin DNA binding, which is indispensable to RSK2-dependent phosphorylation of cGAS at Ser120/Thr130, provides the first clue to how cGAS may participate in chromatin remodeling in the nucleus.