HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 281, Issue 18, 12336-12343, May 5, 2006

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 281/18/12336    most recent M512723200v1 Submit a Letter to Editor Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Request Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Taniura, H. Articles by Yoneda, Y. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Taniura, H. Articles by Yoneda, Y. Social Bookmarking                      What's this?

A Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor Family Gene in Dictyostelium discoideum^*

From the Laboratory of Molecular Pharmacology, Graduate School of Natural Science and Technology, Kanazawa University, Kakumamachi, Kanazawa, Ishikawa 920-1192, Japan

Metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) are a class of G-protein-coupled receptors that possess a seven transmembrane region involved in the modulation of excitatory synaptic transmission in the nervous system. mGluR orthologs have been identified in Drosophila, Caenorhabditis elegans, and higher organisms. Drosophila possesses two mGluR genes, DmGluRA and DmXR. We screened the Dictyostelium genome data base using the ligand binding domain of rat mGluR1 as bait, and identified a new receptor, DdmGluPR, belonging to the mGluR family. Similar to Drosophila DmXR, the residues of mGluRs involved in the binding of the -carboxylic and -amino groups of glutamate were well conserved in DdmGluPR, but the residues interacting with the -carboxylic group of glutamate were not. The phylogenetic analysis suggests that DdmGluPR diverged after the mGluR family-GABA_B receptors split but before mGluR family divergence. DdmGluPR mRNA was expressed in vegetative cells and throughout starvation-induced development, but the level of the expression was relatively high until 4 h after starvation. DdmGluPR was localized to the plasma membrane of axenically grown Ax-2 cells expressed as a green fluorescent protein fusion protein. DdmGluPR-null cells grew faster at high cell density and reached higher densities than wild-type cells. DdmGluPR-null cells exhibited delayed aggregates formation upon starvation and impaired chemotaxis toward cAMP. Although expressions of cAR1 and aca, cAMP-signaling components, were rapidly induced and peaked at 2–4 h in wild-type cells, DdmGluPR-null cells displayed sustained and peaked at 8 h of the expressions of these genes. Our findings suggest the involvement of DdmGluPR in the early development of Dictyostelium discoideum.

Received for publication, November 29, 2005 , and in revised form, March 3, 2006.

^* The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

The nucleotide sequence(s) reported in this paper has been submitted to the GenBank^TM/EBI Data Bank with accession number(s) DQ447637 [GenBank]

² Present address: Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Doshisha Women's College of Liberal Arts, Kodo, Kyotanabe 610-0395, Japan.

³ Present address: Dept. of Pharmacology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Setsunan University, 45-1 Nagaotoge-cho, Hirakata, Osaka 573-0101, Japan.

¹ To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel.: 81-76-234-4473; Fax: 81-76-234-4473; E-mail: hideo{at}p.kanazawa-u.ac.jp.

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				D. Kuang, Y. Yao, D. MacLean, M. Wang, D. R. Hampson, and B. S. W. Chang From the Cover: Ancestral reconstruction of the ligand-binding pocket of Family C G protein-coupled receptors PNAS, September 19, 2006; 103(38): 14050 - 14055. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]