ABSTRACT
Sericins are hydrophilic structural proteins produced by caterpillars in the middle section of silk glands and layered over fibroin proteins secreted in the posterior section. In the process of spinning, fibroins form strong solid filaments, while sericins seal the pair of filaments into a single fiber and glue the fiber into a cocoon. Galleria mellonella and the previously examined Bombyx mori harbor three sericin genes that encode proteins containing long repetitive regions. Galleria sericin genes are similar to each other and the protein repeats are built from short and extremely serine-rich motifs, while Bombyx sericin genes are diversified and encode proteins with long and complex repeats. Developmental changes in sericin properties are controlled at the level of gene expression and splicing. In Galleria , MG-1 sericin is produced throughout larval life until the wandering stage, while the production of MG-2 and MG-3 reaches a peak during cocoon spinning.
Subject(s)
Moths/chemistry , Sericins/chemistry , Silk/chemistry , Amino Acid Sequence , Animals , Base Sequence , Molecular Sequence Data , Protein Conformation , RNA Splicing , Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid , Sericins/genetics , Species SpecificityABSTRACT
Organ-specific metastasis is governed, in part, by interactions between chemokine receptors on cancer cells and matching chemokines in target organs. For example, malignant breast cancer cells express the chemokine receptor CXCR4 and commonly metastasize to organs that are an abundant source of the CXCR4-specific ligand stromal cell-derived factor-1alpha (ref. 1). It is still uncertain how an evolving tumour cell is reprogrammed to express CXCR4, thus implementing the tendency to metastasize to specific organs. Here we show that the von Hippel-Lindau tumour suppressor protein pVHL negatively regulates CXCR4 expression owing to its capacity to target hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) for degradation under normoxic conditions. This process is suppressed under hypoxic conditions, resulting in HIF-dependent CXCR4 activation. An analysis of clear cell renal carcinoma that manifests mutation of the VHL gene in most cases revealed an association of strong CXCR4 expression with poor tumour-specific survival. These results suggest a mechanism for CXCR4 activation during tumour cell evolution and imply that VHL inactivation acquired by incipient tumour cells early in tumorigenesis confers not only a selective survival advantage but also the tendency to home to selected organs.
