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1 Surgery, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States
2 Nutrition, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States
3 Genetics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States
4 Surgery, University of Alabama at Birmingham Pediatric Surgery, Birmingham, Alabama, United States
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ying-kui.yang{at}ccc.uab.edu.
The adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) receptor, also known as the melanocortin-2 receptor (MC2R), is critical for ACTH mediated adrenal glucocorticoid release. Human MC2R (hMC2R) has ten cysteine residues which are located in extracellular loops (ELs), transmembrane domains (TMs) and intracellular loops (ILs). In this study, we examined the importance of these cysteine residues in receptor function and determined their involvement in disulfide bond formation. We replaced these cysteines with serine and expressed the mutated receptors in adrenal OS3 cells which lack endogenous MC2R. Our results indicate that four mutations, C21S in N terminus, C245S, C251S, and C253S in EL3, resulted in significant decrease both in receptor expression and receptor function. Mutation of cysteine 231 in TM6 significantly decreased ACTH binding affinity and potency. In contrast, the five other mutated receptors (C64S, C158S, C191S, C267S and C293S) did not significantly alter ACTH binding affinity and potency. These results suggest that extracellular cysteine residue 21, 245, 251, 253 and transmembrane cysteine residue 231 are crucial for ACTH binding and signaling. Further experiments suggest that a disulfide bond exists between the residue C245 and C251in EL3. These findings provide important insights into the importance of cysteine residues of hMC2R for receptor function.
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