目的探究皮层肌动蛋白结合蛋白(Cortactin)对异丙肾上腺素(isoprenaline,ISO)诱导的病理性心肌肥大的调控作用及其机制。方法采用ISO刺激新生大鼠心肌细胞(neonatal rat cardiomyocytes,NRCMs)24 h,在细胞水平建立心肌肥大模型;C57BL/6小鼠皮下注射ISO 1周,在动物水平建立心肌肥大模型。采用RT-qPCR检测mRNA的变化;免疫印迹法检测相应蛋白含量的变化;免疫荧光法检测Cortactin的亚细胞定位及表达量的变化;采用腺病毒感染的方法过表达Cortactin,通过转染小干扰RNA敲低Cortactin。结果在细胞和动物水平上,成功建立ISO诱导的心肌肥大模型,均观察到ISO引起Cortactin和N型钙黏连蛋白(N-cadherin)水平降低;过表达Cortactin可逆转ISO导致的N-cadherin蛋白水平的降低及心肌细胞肥大反应;敲低Cortactin则显示相反的效应。结论Cortactin可能联合N-cadherin通过增强心肌细胞之间的连接,发挥抗心肌肥大的作用。
Glutamate-ammonia ligase(GLUL, also known as glutamine synthetase) is a crucial enzyme that catalyzes ammonium and glutamate into glutamine in the ATP-dependent condensation. Although GLUL plays a critical role in multiple cancers, the expression and function of GLUL in gastric cancer remain unclear. In the present study, we have found that the expression level of GLUL was significantly lower in gastric cancer tissues compared with adjacent normal tissues, and correlated with N stage and TNM stage, and low GLUL expression predicted poor survival for gastric cancer patients. Knockdown of GLUL promoted the growth, migration, invasion and metastasis of gastric cancer cells in vitro and in vivo, and vice versa, which was independent of its enzyme activity. Mechanistically, GLUL competed with β-Catenin to bind to N-Cadherin, increased the stability of N-Cadherin and decreased the stability of β-Catenin by alerting their ubiquitination. Furthermore, there were lower N-Cadherin and higher β-Catenin expression levels in gastric cancer tissues compared with adjacent normal tissues. GLUL protein expression was correlated with that of N-Cadherin, and could be the independent prognostic factor in gastric cancer. Our findings reveal that GLUL stabilizes N-Cadherin by antagonizing β-Catenin to inhibit the progress of gastric cancer.
Cell adhesion plays pivotal roles in the morphogenesis of multicellular organisms.Epithelial cells form several types of cell-to-cell adhesion,including zonula occludens(tight junctions),zonula adhaerens(adherens junctions),and macula adhaerens(desmosomes).Although these adhesion complexes are basically observed only in epithelial cells,cadherins,which are the major cell adhesion molecules of adherens junctions,are expressed in both epithelial and non-epithelial tissues,including neural tissues(Kawauchi,2012).The cadherin superfamily consists of more than 100 members,but classic cadherins.
