Rotblat B, Belanis L, Liang H, Haklai R, Elad-Zefadia G, Hancock JF, Kloog Y, Plowman SJ. H-Ras nanocluster stability regulates the magnitude of MAPK signal output.
PLoS One 2010;
5:e11991. [PMID:
20700538 PMCID:
PMC2916832 DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0011991]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 34] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/27/2009] [Accepted: 07/12/2010] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
H-Ras is a binary switch that is activated by multiple co-factors and triggers several key cellular pathways one of which is MAPK. The specificity and magnitude of downstream activation is achieved by the spatio-temporal organization of the active H-Ras in the plasma membrane. Upon activation, the GTP bound H-Ras binds to Galectin-1 (Gal-1) and becomes transiently immobilized in short-lived nanoclusters on the plasma membrane from which the signal is propagated to Raf. In the current study we show that stabilizing the H-Ras-Gal-1 interaction, using bimolecular fluorescence complementation (BiFC), leads to prolonged immobilization of H-Ras.GTP in the plasma membrane which was measured by fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP), and increased signal out-put to the MAPK module. EM measurements of Raf recruitment to the H-Ras.GTP nanoclusters demonstrated that the enhanced signaling observed in the BiFC stabilized H-Ras.GTP nanocluster was attributed to increased H-Ras immobilization rather than to an increase in Raf recruitment. Taken together these data demonstrate that the magnitude of the signal output from a GTP-bound H-Ras nanocluster is proportional to its stability.
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