Structural Changes in the Carboxyl Terminus of the Gap Junction Protein Connexin43 Indicates Signaling between Binding Domains for c-Src and Zonula Occludens-1*
- Paul L. Sorgen‡§,
- Heather S. Duffy¶,
- Prangya Sahoo‡,
- Wanda Coombs∥,
- Mario Delmar∥** and
- David C. Spray¶**
- ‡Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska 68198, the ¶Department of Neuroscience, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York 10461, and the ∥Department of Pharmacology, Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, New York 13210
- § To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel.: 402-559-7557; Fax: 402-559-6650; E-mail: psorgen{at}unmc.edu.
Abstract
Regulation of cell-cell communication by the gap junction protein connexin43 can be modulated by a variety of connexin-associating proteins. In particular, c-Src can disrupt the connexin43 (Cx43)-zonula occludens-1 (ZO-1) interaction, leading to down-regulation of gap junction intercellular communication. The binding sites for ZO-1 and c-Src correspond to widely separated Cx43 domains (∼100 residues apart); however, little is known about the structural modifications that may allow information to be transferred over this distance. Here, we have characterized the structure of the connexin43 carboxyl-terminal domain (Cx43CT) to assess its ability to interact with domains from ZO-1 and c-Src. NMR data indicate that the Cx43CT exists primarily as an elongated random coil, with two regions of α-helical structure. NMR titration experiments determined that the ZO-1 PDZ-2 domain affected the last 19 Cx43CT residues, a region larger than that reported to be required for Cx43CT-ZO-1 binding. The c-Src SH3 domain affected Cx43CT residues Lys-264–Lys-287, Ser-306–Glu-316, His-331–Phe-337, Leu-356–Val-359, and Ala-367–Ser-372. Only region Lys-264–Lys-287 contains the residues previously reported to act as an SH3 binding domain. The specificity of these interactions was verified by peptide competition experiments. Finally, we demonstrated that the SH3 domain could partially displace the Cx43CT-PDZ-2 complex. These studies represent the first structural characterization of a connexin domain when integrated in a multimolecular complex. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the structural characteristics of a disordered Cx43CT are advantageous for signaling between different binding partners that may be important in describing the mechanism of channel closure or internalization in response to pathophysiological stimuli.
Footnotes
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↵1 The abbreviations used are: Cx43, connexin43; Cx43CT, connexin43 carboxyl terminus; Cx43CL, connexin43 cytoplasmic loop; CL, cytoplasmic loop; CT, carboxyl terminus; HSQC, heteronuclear single-quantum correlation; NMR, nuclear magnetic resonance; NOE, nuclear Overhauser effect; NOESY, NOE spectroscopy; ZO-1, zonula Occludens-1; SH, Src homology; MAP, mitogen-activated protein; MAPK, MAP kinase.
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The atomic coordinates and structure factors (code 1R5S) have been deposited in the Protein Data Bank, Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ (http://www.rcsb.org/).
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↵* This work was supported by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services Grant LB506 2005-27 and the United States Public Health Service Grants HL39707, NS41282, MH65495, and GM57691. 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.
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The on-line version of this article (available at http://www.jbc.org) contains two supplementary figures.
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↵** Both authors contributed equally to this work.
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- Received August 19, 2004.
- Revision received October 7, 2004.
- The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.
