Lysosomal and proteasomal degradation play distinct roles in the life cycle of Cx43 in gap junctional intercellular communication-deficient and -competent breast tumor cells

Hong Qin, Qing Shao, Suleiman A. Igdoura, Moulay A. Alaoui-Jamali, Dale W. Laird

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

123 Scopus citations

Abstract

The present study was designed to determine the specific roles played by lysosomes and proteasomes in the degradation of Cx43 in both gap junctional intercellular communication-deficient MDA-MB-231 and -competent BICR-M1Rk cells. In MDA-MB-231 cells, immunolocalization and brefeldin A protein transport blocking studies revealed that there was a propensity for newly synthesized Cx43 to be transported to lysosomes. On the other hand, light and electron microscopic analysis of BICR-M1Rk cells showed that Cx43 gap junctions were prevalent with a subpopulation of intracellular Cx43 localized to lysosomes. In both cell types, Western blots revealed a notable increase in total cellular Cx43 in response to lysosome inhibitors. Interestingly, lactacystin inhibition of proteosomal degradation in MDA-MB-231 cells resulted in a marked increase in phosphorylated Cx43 at the expense of non-phosphorylated Cx43, and this change corresponded with an increase in "oversized" gap junction plaques. In BICR-M1Rk cells, lactacystin treatment partially prevented the BFA-induced loss of gap junctions. Together, our data suggests that lysosomes play a key role in not only degrading internalized gap junction in BICR-M1Rk cells but also in degrading Cx43 delivered from early secretory compartments to lysosomes in MDA-MB-231 cells. Overall proteasomal degradation regulates the stability of phosphorylated Cx43 and appears to promote the internalization of Cx43 from the cell surface.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)30005-30014
Number of pages10
JournalJournal of Biological Chemistry
Volume278
Issue number32
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 8 2003

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Biochemistry
  • Molecular Biology
  • Cell Biology

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