Designing the lipid raft marker protein for synaptic vesicles

Lipid rafts are cholesterol-enriched microdomains and implicated in many essential physiological activities such as the neurotransmitter release. Many studies have been carried out on the function of rafts in the plasma membranes, whereas little is known about the information of such microdomains in subcellular compartments especially synaptic vesicles (SVs). In the well-studied plasma membranes, several proteins have been recognized as raft markers, which are used to label or trace rafts. But the raft marker protein on SVs has not been identified yet. Although some SV proteins, including VAMP and CPE, have been found in raft fractions, they cannot be used as markers due to their low abundance in rafts. In this work, we designed several chimera proteins and tested their characteristics for using as SV raft makers. First, we detected whether they located in SVs, and then the chimeras exhibiting the better localization in SVs were further examined for their enrichment in raft using detergent treatment and gradient density floatation analysis. Our results indicate that one of the chimeric proteins is primarily located in SVs and distributed in raft microdomains, which strongly suggests that it could be served as a raft marker for SVs.     

突触结合蛋白Ⅰ的C2结构域与脂筏微区的作用

报道了突触结合蛋白Ⅰ的C2结构域可以和细胞膜的脂筏结合. 研究结果证明, 目标膜上的 PIP₂和Ca²⁺是促进C2结构域和脂筏结合的关键因子. 研究还发现, 单独的C2A和C2B结构域也可以和脂筏结合, 说明C2A和C2B与脂筏的结合作用可能是互为补充的. 研究表明, 破坏脂筏或阻止突触结合蛋白Ⅰ与脂筏结合都可以显著地减少谷氨酸的释放. 研究提示, C2结构域与脂筏的结合可能在Ca²⁺的调节神经递质释放中起重要作用.