ABSTRACT
Reelin is a 3461-residue secreted glycoprotein that plays a critical role in brain development through its action on target neurons. Although it is known that functional reelin protein exists as multimer formed by interchain disulfide bond(s) as well as through non-covalent interactions, the chemical nature of the multimer assembly has been elusive. In the present study, we identified, among 122 cysteines present in full-length reelin, the single critical cysteine residue (Cys(2101)) responsible for the covalent multimerization. C2101A mutant reelin failed to assemble into disulfide-bonded multimers, whereas it still exhibited non-covalently associated high molecular weight oligomeric states in solution. Detailed analysis of tryptic fragments produced from the purified reelin proteins revealed that the minimum unit of the multimer is a homodimeric reelin linked via Cys(2101) present in the central region and that this cysteine does not connect to the N-terminal region of reelin, which had been postulated as the primary oligomerization domain. A surface plasmon resonance binding assay confirmed that C2101A mutant reelin retained binding capability toward two neuronal receptors apolipoprotein E receptor 2 and very low density lipoprotein receptor. However, it failed to show signaling activity in the assay using the cultured neurons. These results indicate that an intact higher order architecture of reelin multimer maintained by both Cys(2101)-mediated homodimerization and other non-covalent association present elsewhere in the reelin primary structure are essential for exerting its full biological activity.
Subject(s)
Cell Adhesion Molecules, Neuronal/chemistry , Extracellular Matrix Proteins/chemistry , Nerve Tissue Proteins/chemistry , Serine Endopeptidases/chemistry , Amino Acid Sequence , Animals , Brain/metabolism , CHO Cells , Cell Adhesion Molecules, Neuronal/metabolism , Cell Line , Cricetinae , Cricetulus , Dimerization , Disulfides/chemistry , Extracellular Matrix Proteins/metabolism , Humans , Mice , Molecular Sequence Data , Nerve Tissue Proteins/metabolism , Neurons/metabolism , Phosphorylation , Protein Binding , Protein Structure, Tertiary , Reelin Protein , Sequence Homology, Amino Acid , Serine Endopeptidases/metabolism , Signal TransductionABSTRACT
We theoretically investigate the dynamics of the photoexcited state in the strongly correlated low-dimensional electron systems. In the two-dimensional case, the ultrafast relaxation originating from the transfer of photogenerated charges in the antiferromagnetic background is followed by the slower one originating from the spin structure rearrangement with the new charge distributions. This clearly shows the difference in the relaxation between charge and spin degrees of freedom. In the one-dimensional case, spin-charge separation holds and the mechanical coherence is preserved.
