Journal of cell science. Supplement最新文献

The basic endosomal recycling pathway can be modified to generate transcytotic vesicles, storage vesicles and synaptic vesicles. Sorting into synaptic vesicles requires specialized sorting information not present in the transcytotic and storage vesicle proteins. Using mutagenesis we have distinguished the signals for rapid endocytosis and SV targeting in synaptobrevin. Finally, we have evidence that synaptic vesicles can be generated from an endosomal compartment in vitro.

The recent identification of novel proteins associated with the membranes of synaptic vesicles has ignited the field of molecular neurobiology to probe the function of these molecules. Evidence is mounting that the vesicle proteins vamp (synaptobrevin), rab3A, synaptophysin, synaptotagmin (p65) and SV2 play an important role in regulated exocytosis, by regulating neurotransmitter uptake, vesicle targeting and fusion with the presynaptic plasma membrane.

Fetal hippocampal neurons develop axons and dendrites in culture. To study how neurons form and maintain different plasma membrane domains, hippocampal neurons were infected with RNA viruses and the distribution of the viral glycoproteins was analyzed by light and electron microscopy. Infection of hippocampal cells with vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) and fowl plague virus (FPV) resulted in the polarized distribution of the newly synthesized viral glycoproteins. The VSV glycoprotein appeared firstly in the Golgi apparatus and then in the dendrites. In contrast, the hemagglutinin of FPV, after accumulation in the Golgi apparatus, moved to the axons. These results suggest that the mechanism of sorting of viral glycoproteins might be similar in neurons and MDCK cells, a cell line of epithelial origin. In these cells the VSV glycoprotein and the hemagglutinin of FPV distribute to the basolateral and apical membranes, respectively. Transport of viral glycoproteins to both neuronal domains was microtubule dependent. Nocodazole treatment of infected neurons inhibited the delivery of axonal and dendritic viral glycoproteins equally. To investigate if the analogy between epithelial cells and neurons extended to include an endogenous plasma membrane protein, the distribution of Thy-1, a GPI-linked protein, was analyzed. By immunofluorescence and immunoelectron microscopy, Thy-1 was found exclusively along the axonal surface. In epithelial cells GPI-anchored proteins are located apically. The existence of a barrier on the neuronal plasma membrane that would prevent intermixing of axonal and dendritic proteins was analyzed by a liposomefusion assay.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

The plasma membrane composition of virtually all eukaryotic cells is maintained and continually modified by the recycling of specific protein and lipid components. In the kidney collecting duct, urinary acidification and urinary concentration are physiologically regulated at the cellular level by the shuttling of proton pumps and water channels between intracellular vesicles and the plasma membrane of highly specialized cell types. In the intercalated cell, hydrogen ion secretion into the urine is modulated by the recycling of vesicles carrying a proton pumping ATPase to and from the plasma membrane. In the principal cell, the antidiuretic hormone, vasopressin, induces the insertion of vesicles that contain proteinaceous water channels into the apical cell membrane, thus increasing the permeability to water of the epithelial layer. In both cell types, 'coated' carrier vesicles are involved in this process, but whereas clathrin-coated vesicles are involved in the endocytotic phase of water channel recycling, the transporting vesicles in intercalated cells are coated with the cytoplasmic domains of the proton pumping ATPase. By a combination of morphological and functional techniques using FITC-dextran as an endosomal marker, we have shown that recycling endosomes from intercalated cells are acidifying vesicles but that they do not contain water channels. In contrast, principal cell vesicles that recycle water channels do not acidify their lumens in response to ATP. These non-acidic vesicles lack functionally important subunits of the vacuolar proton ATPase, including the 16 kDa proteolipid that forms the transmembrane proton pore. Because these endosomes are directly derived via clathrin-mediated endocytosis, our results indicate that endocytotic clathrin-coated vesicles are non-acidic compartments in principal cells. In contrast, recycling vesicles in intercalated cells contain large numbers of proton pumps, arranged in hexagonally packed arrays on the vesicle membrane. These pumps are inserted into the apical plasma membrane of A-type (acid-secreting) intercalated cells, and the basolateral plasma membrane of B-type (bicarbonate-secreting) cells in the collecting duct. Both apical and basolateral targeting of H(+)-ATPase-containing vesicles in these cells may be directed by microtubules, because polarized insertion of the pump into both membrane domains is disrupted by microtubule depolymerizing agents. However, the basolateral localization of other transporting proteins in intercalated cells, including the band 3-like anion exchanger and facilitated glucose transporters, is not affected by microtubule disruption.

The complex and overlapping tissue distribution of different members of the gap junctional connexin protein family is reviewed. Intermixing of different connexins in the building of intercellular channels and translational and posttranslational regulation of gap junctional channels add additional challenges to the interpretation of the possible functions played by gap junction-mediated intercellular communication in tissue business.

Cadherins are Ca(2+)-dependent cell adhesion molecules that mediate cell adhesion by homophilic binding. Structural and functional analysis of the extracellular part of cadherins that mediates this binding has often been hampered by the availability of sufficient amount of protein. Therefore, we have expressed the extracellular region of E-cadherin (uvomorulin) using the baculovirus expression vector system (BEVS). A recombinant baculovirus was generated that encodes the signal peptide, the precursor region and the extracellular part of the mature protein, under the control of the promotor for polyhedrin. Infection of insect cells with recombinant virus led to the expression of about 40 mg of the E-cadherin fragment per 2 x 10(9) infected cells. About half of the protein synthesized was secreted, either as mature protein or in its unprocessed form. The precursor peptide was removed by trypsin treatment in the presence of Ca2+ and recombinant protein was purified to homogeneity. Biochemical characterization of the recombinant protein revealed a high degree of similarity with the mouse wild-type protein. Recombinant protein exhibited the known resistance to trypsin in the presence of Ca2+ and was recognized by two different conformation-sensitive monoclonal anti-E-cadherin antibodies. Rabbit antibodies made against the recombinant protein recognized E-cadherin from different species. In spite of the high degree of structural resemblance recombinant E-cadherin was not able to inhibit E-cadherin mediated cell-cell adhesion.

As a model system to study protein traffic in polarized epithelial cells, we have used the polymeric immunoglobulin receptor. This receptor travels first to the basolateral surface, where it can bind polymeric IgA or IgM. The receptor is then endocytosed and delivered to endosomes. The receptor is sorted into transcytotic vesicles, which are exocytosed at the apical surface. The 103-amino acid cytoplasmic domain of the receptor contains several sorting signals. The 17 residues closest to the membrane are an autonomous signal that is necessary and sufficient for basolateral sorting. For rapid endocytosis there are two independent signals, both of which contain critical tyrosine residues. Finally, transcytosis is signaled by phosphorylation of a particular serine.

Epithelial cell adhesion is principally regulated by calcium-dependent cell adhesion proteins, termed cadherins. Recent studies indicate that cadherin function is modulated by a class of proteins, termed catenins, that bind to the cytoplasmic domain of cadherin. Here we review the evidence that catenins regulate cadherin function in cell-cell adhesion, and discuss their role in initiating cell surface polarity in epithelial cells.

The TATA-binding protein (TBP) is a principal component of the general factor TFIID and is required for specific transcription by RNA polymerase II. We have shown that TBP is also a general factor for RNA polymerase III.

The segmented body pattern along the longitudinal axis of the Drosophila embryo is established by a cascade of specific transcription factor activities. This cascade is initiated by maternal gene products that are localized at the polar regions of the egg. The initial long-range positional information of the maternal factors, which are transcription factors (or are factors which activate or localize transcription factors), is transferred through the activity of the zygotic segmentation genes. The gap genes act at the top of this regulatory hierarchy. Expression of the gap genes occurs in discrete domains along the longitudinal axis of the preblastoderm and defines specific, overlapping sets of segment primordia. Their protein products, which are DNA-binding transcription factors mostly of the zinc finger type, form broad and overlapping concentration gradients which are controlled by maternal factors and by mutual interactions between the gap genes themselves. Once established, these overlapping gap protein gradients provide spatial cues which generate the repeated pattern of the subordinate pair-rule gene expression, thereby blue-printing the pattern of segmental units in the blastoderm embryo. Our results show different strategies by which maternal gene products, in combination with various gap gene proteins, provide position-dependent sets of transcriptional activator/repressor systems which regulate the spatial pattern of specific gap gene expression. Region-specific combinations of different transcription factors that derive from localized gap gene expression eventually generate the periodic pattern of pair-rule gene expression by the direct interaction with individual cis-acting "stripe elements" of particular pair-rule gene promoters. Thus, the developmental fate of blastoderm cells is programmed according to their position within the anterior-posterior axis of the embryo: maternal transcription factors regulate the region-specific expression of first zygotic transcription factors which, by their specific and unique combinations, control subordinate zygotic transcription factors, thereby subdividing the embryo into increasingly smaller units later seen in the larva.