title: Moesin regulates the trafficking of nascent clathrin-coated vesicles.
abstract: Clathrin-coated vesicles are responsible for the trafficking of several internalized biological cargos. We have observed that the endogenous F-actin-linker moesin co-distributes with constitutive components of clathrin-coated structures. Total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy studies have shown that short interference RNA of moesin enhances the lateral movement of clathrin-coated structures and provokes their abnormal clustering. The aggregation of clathrin-coated structures has also been observed in cells overexpressing N-moesin, a dominant-negative construct unable to bind to F-actin. Only overexpressed moesin constructs with an intact phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate-binding domain co-distribute with clathrin-coated structures. Hence, this N-terminal domain is mostly responsible for moesin/clathrin-coated structure association. Biochemical endosome fractioning together with total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy comparative studies, between intact cells and plasma-membrane sheets, indicate that moesin knockdown provokes the accumulation of endocytic rab5-clathrin-coated vesicles carrying the transferrin receptor. The altered trafficking of these endocytic rab5-clathrin-coated vesicles accounts for a transferrin receptor recycling defect that reduces cell-surface expression of the transferrin receptor and increases the amount of sequestered transferrin ligand. Therefore, we propose that moesin is a clathrin-coated vesicle linker that drives cargo trafficking and acts on nascent rab5-clathrin-coated vesicles by simultaneously binding to clathrin-coated vesicle-associated phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate and actin cytoskeleton. Hence, functional alterations of moesin may be involved in pathological disorders associated with clathrin-mediated internalization or receptor recycling.
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Inmunología Celular y Viral, Unidad de Farmacología, Departamento de Medicina Física y Farmacología, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de La Laguna, Instituto de Tecnologías Biomédicas, Campus de Ofra s/n, Tenerife 38071, Spain.
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Barroso-González
authors.forename: José-David
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Machado
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: García-Expósito
authors.forename: Agustín
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Valenzuela-Fernández
mesh_terms: D022163:Clathrin-Coated Vesicles / Q000378:metabolism*; D006367:HeLa Cells; D006801:Humans; D008840:Microfilament Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D011485:Protein Binding; D021381:Protein Transport; D034741:RNA, Small Interfering / Q000235:genetics; D011990:Receptors, Transferrin / Q000378:metabolism; D014168:Transferrin / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D008840:Microfilament Proteins; D034741:RNA, Small Interfering; D011990:Receptors, Transferrin; D014168:Transferrin; C071058:moesin