Sorting of lens aquaporins and connexins into raft and nonraft bilayers: role of protein homo-oligomerization.

ABSTRACT: Two classes of channel-forming proteins in the eye lens, the water channel aquaporin-0 (AQP-0) and the connexins Cx46 and Cx50, are preferentially located in different regions of lens plasma membranes (1,2). Because these membranes contain high concentrations of cholesterol and sphingomyelin, as well as phospholipids such as phosphatidylcholine with unsaturated hydrocarbon chains, microdomains (rafts) form in these membranes. Here we test the hypothesis that sorting into lipid microdomains can play a role in the disposition of AQP-0 and the connexins in the plane of the membrane. For both crude membrane fractions and proteoliposomes composed of lens proteins in phosphatidylcholine/sphingomyelin/cholesterol lipid bilayers, detergent extraction experiments showed that the connexins were loca

SUBMITTER: Tong J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2770620 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature