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CRYSTAL STRUCTURE OF MOUSE CADHERIN-23 EC1-2 AND PROTOCADHERIN-15 EC1- 2 FORM I
Structural highlights
DiseaseCAD23_MOUSE Defects in Cdh23 are the cause of waltzer (v) phenotype. Waltzer mice are characterized by deafness and vestibular dysfunction due to degeneration of the neuroepithelium within the inner ear. FunctionCAD23_MOUSE Cadherins are calcium-dependent cell adhesion proteins. They preferentially interact with themselves in a homophilic manner in connecting cells. CDH23 is required for establishing and/or maintaining the proper organization of the stereocilia bundle of hair cells in the cochlea and the vestibule during late embryonic/early postnatal development. It is part of the functional network formed by USH1C, USH1G, CDH23 and MYO7A that mediates mechanotransduction in cochlear hair cells. Required for normal hearing.[1] Publication Abstract from PubMedHearing and balance use hair cells in the inner ear to transform mechanical stimuli into electrical signals. Mechanical force from sound waves or head movements is conveyed to hair-cell transduction channels by tip links, fine filaments formed by two atypical cadherins known as protocadherin 15 and cadherin 23 (refs 4, 5). These two proteins are involved in inherited deafness and feature long extracellular domains that interact tip-to-tip in a Ca(2+)-dependent manner. However, the molecular architecture of this complex is unknown. Here we combine crystallography, molecular dynamics simulations and binding experiments to characterize the protocadherin 15-cadherin 23 bond. We find a unique cadherin interaction mechanism, in which the two most amino-terminal cadherin repeats (extracellular cadherin repeats 1 and 2) of each protein interact to form an overlapped, antiparallel heterodimer. Simulations predict that this tip-link bond is mechanically strong enough to resist forces in hair cells. In addition, the complex is shown to become unstable in response to Ca(2+) removal owing to increased flexure of Ca(2+)-free cadherin repeats. Finally, we use structures and biochemical measurements to study the molecular mechanisms by which deafness mutations disrupt tip-link function. Overall, our results shed light on the molecular mechanics of hair-cell sensory transduction and on new interaction mechanisms for cadherins, a large protein family implicated in tissue and organ morphogenesis, neural connectivity and cancer. Structure of a force-conveying cadherin bond essential for inner-ear mechanotransduction.,Sotomayor M, Weihofen WA, Gaudet R, Corey DP Nature. 2012 Nov 7. doi: 10.1038/nature11590. PMID:23135401[2] From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. See AlsoReferences
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