101. Tetraspanins TSP-12 and TSP-14 function redundantly to regulate the trafficking of the type II BMP receptor in Caenorhabditis elegans
- Author
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Jun Liu, Zhiyu Liu, Anne Norris, Herong Shi, Barth D. Grant, and Anthony K Nzessi
- Subjects
Cell type ,endocrine system ,Endosome ,Tetraspanins ,Endosomes ,Biology ,Bone morphogenetic protein ,03 medical and health sciences ,Tetraspanin ,immune system diseases ,Animals ,Receptor ,Caenorhabditis elegans ,Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins ,030304 developmental biology ,0303 health sciences ,Multidisciplinary ,030302 biochemistry & molecular biology ,virus diseases ,Biological Sciences ,biology.organism_classification ,Transmembrane protein ,Cell biology ,Retromer complex ,Protein Transport ,Gene Expression Regulation ,Bone Morphogenetic Proteins ,Receptors, Transforming Growth Factor beta ,Signal Transduction - Abstract
Tetraspanins are a unique family of 4-pass transmembrane proteins that play important roles in a variety of cell biological processes. We have previously shown that 2 paralogous tetraspanins in Caenorhabditis elegans, TSP-12 and TSP-14, function redundantly to promote bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling. The underlying molecular mechanisms, however, are not fully understood. In this study, we examined the expression and subcellular localization patterns of endogenously tagged TSP-12 and TSP-14 proteins. We found that TSP-12 and TSP-14 share overlapping expression patterns in multiple cell types, and that both proteins are localized on the cell surface and in various types of endosomes, including early, late, and recycling endosomes. Animals lacking both TSP-12 and TSP-14 exhibit reduced cell-surface levels of the BMP type II receptor DAF-4/BMPRII, along with impaired endosome morphology and mislocalization of DAF-4/BMPRII to late endosomes and lysosomes. These findings indicate that TSP-12 and TSP-14 are required for the recycling of DAF-4/BMPRII. Together with previous findings that the type I receptor SMA-6 is recycled via the retromer complex, our work demonstrates the involvement of distinct recycling pathways for the type I and type II BMP receptors and highlights the importance of tetraspanin-mediated intracellular trafficking in the regulation of BMP signaling in vivo. As TSP-12 and TSP-14 are conserved in mammals, our findings suggest that the mammalian TSP-12 and TSP-14 homologs may also function in regulating transmembrane protein recycling and BMP signaling.
- Published
- 2020