FTH1 binds to Daxx and inhibits Daxx-mediated cell apoptosis.

As a highly conserved nuclear protein, death domain-associated protein (Daxx) plays an important role in transcriptional control, carcinogenesis, and resistance to virus infection and so on. In order to further investigate the mechanism of Daxx, the yeast two-hybrid technique was used to screen the intra-cellular proteins interacting with Daxx. And 13 positive colonies and three proteins interacting with Daxx were obtained. One of the candidate proteins was identified as ferritin, heavy polypeptide 1(FTH1). The interaction between Daxx and FTH1 was further supported by GST pull-down and co-immunoprecipitation respectively. Then Daxx was determined to induce apoptosis and FTH1 can inhibit Daxx-mediated apoptosis. Besides, it is found that Daxx mediated apoptosis through the Fas-Daxx-ASK1-JNK1 signaling pathway, while FTH1 can inhibit the activation of JNK signaling pathway. We present evidence to demonstrate the FTH1 and Daxx are able to participate in apoptosis pathway through JNK signal molecule and FTH1 can inhibit this pathway.