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LET-413 is a basolateral protein required for the assembly of adherens junctions in Caenorhabditis elegans

Nature Cell Biology volume 2, pages 415–422 (2000)Cite this article

Abstract

Epithelial cells are polarized, with apical and basal compartments demarcated by tight and adherens junctions. Proper establishment of these subapical junctions is critical for normal development and histogenesis. We report the characterization of the gene let-413 which has a critical role in assembling adherens junctions in Caenorhabditis elegans. In let-413 mutants, adherens junctions are abnormal and mislocalized to more basolateral positions, epithelial cell polarity is affected and the actin cytoskeleton is disorganized. The LET-413 protein contains one PDZ domain and 16 leucine-rich repeats with high homology to proteins known to interact with small GTPases. Strikingly, LET-413 localizes to the basolateral membrane. We suggest that LET-413 acts as an adaptor protein involved in polarizing protein trafficking in epithelial cells.

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Figure 1: let-413 mutants present morphogenetic defects and epithelial abnormalities.
Figure 2: let-413 encodes a member of the newly defined LAP family of proteins.
Figure 3: Alignment of LAP proteins.
Figure 4: LET-413 is localized at the basolateral membrane of epithelial cells.
Figure 5: The apical compartment and the cytoskeleton are disturbed in epithelia of let-413 mutants.
Figure 6: Adherens junctions are abnormal and mislocalized in let-413 embryos.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to J.-P. Borg, A. Le Bivic and D. Birnbaum for sharing unpublished information, to A. Coulson, A. Fire, J. Hardin, Y. Kohara, J. Priess, Y. Tabuse, S. Tuck and B. Waterston for reagents. Some strains were provided by the Caenorhabditis Genetic stock centre, which is supported by the National Institute of Health and the National centre for Research Resources. We thank J.-L. Vonesch and N. Messaddeq for help with confocal microscopy, G. Duval for assistance with rabbits and Olivier Poch for help with sequence alignments. We thank very much L. McMahon, E. Georges-Labouesse, A. Giangrande and N. Skaer for stimulating discussions and critical reading of the manuscript. Work of DLB was supported by a research grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada; work at the IGBMC was supported by funds from the CNRS, INSERM, Hôpital Universitaire de Strasbourg, by grants from the EEC-TMR programme and the Association pour la Recherche contre le Cancer to M.L.

Correspondence should be addressed to M.L The EMBL accession number for the sequence of cDNA yk660h2 is AJ276590.

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  1. Institut de Génétique et de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire, CNRS/INSERM/ULP, BP163, 1, rue Laurent Fries, Illkirch, 67404, France

    Renaud Legouis, Anne Gansmuller, Satis Sookhareea, Julia M. Bosher & Michel Labouesse

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, V5A 1S6 , British Columbia, Canada

    David L. Baillie

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Legouis, R., Gansmuller, A., Sookhareea, S. et al. LET-413 is a basolateral protein required for the assembly of adherens junctions in Caenorhabditis elegans . Nat Cell Biol 2, 415–422 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35017046

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