Cell corpse engulfment mediated by C. elegans phosphatidylserine receptor through CED-5 and CED-12

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 302; no. 5650; pp. 1563 - 1566
• Main Authors: XIAOCHEN WANG, WU, Yi-Chun, HENSON, Peter, MITANI, Shohei, DING XUE, FADOK, Valerie A, LEE, Ming-Chia, GENGYO-ANDO, Keiko, CHENG, Li-Chun, LEDWICH, Duncan, HSU, Pei-Ken, CHEN, Jia-Yun, CHOU, Bin-Kuan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Association for the Advancement of Science 28-11-2003; The American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subjects: Adaptor Proteins, Signal Transducing; Ageing, cell death; Amino Acid Sequence; Animals; Apoptosis; Biological and medical sciences; Caenorhabditis elegans - cytology; Caenorhabditis elegans - embryology; Caenorhabditis elegans - metabolism; Caenorhabditis elegans - physiology; Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins - genetics; Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins - metabolism; Carrier Proteins - genetics; Carrier Proteins - metabolism; Cell physiology; Cellular biology; Chemical properties; Cytoskeletal Proteins; Developmental Stages; Embryo, Nonmammalian - cytology; Embryo, Nonmammalian - metabolism; Embryonic Development; Embryos; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Jumonji Domain-Containing Histone Demethylases; Least Squares Statistics; Membrane Proteins - genetics; Membrane Proteins - metabolism; Membranes; Molecular and cellular biology; Molecular Sequence Data; Mutation; Persistence; Phagocytosis; Phosphatidylserines - metabolism; Plasma; Protein Binding; rac GTP-Binding Proteins - genetics; rac GTP-Binding Proteins - metabolism; Receptors, Cell Surface - genetics; Receptors, Cell Surface - metabolism; Recombinant Fusion Proteins - metabolism; Recombinant Proteins - metabolism; Signal Transduction; Statistical Analysis; Japan; Caenorhabditis elegans; Helmintha; Nemathelminthia; Invertebrata; Nematoda; Phosphatidylserine; Phagocytosis; Apoptosis; Biological receptor
• ISSN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.1087641

During apoptosis, phosphatidylserine, which is normally restricted to the inner leaflet of the plasma membrane, is exposed on the surface of apoptotic cells and has been suggested to act as an "eat-me" signal to trigger phagocytosis. It is unclear how phagocytes recognize phosphatidylserine. Recently, a putative phosphatidylserine receptor (PSR) was identified and proposed to mediate recognition of phosphatidylserine and phagocytosis. We report that psr-1, the Caenorhabditis elegans homolog of PSR, is important for cell corpse engulfment. In vitro PSR-1 binds preferentially phosphatidylserine or cells with exposed phosphatidylserine. In C. elegans, PSR-1 acts in the same cell corpse engulfment pathway mediated by intracellular signaling molecules CED-2 (homologous to the human CrkII protein), CED-5 (DOCK180), CED-10 (Rac GTPase), and CED-12 (ELMO), possibly through direct interaction with CED-5 and CED-12. Our findings suggest that PSR-1 is likely an upstream receptor for the signaling pathway containing CED-2, CED-5, CED-10, and CED-12 proteins and plays an important role in recognizing phosphatidylserine during phagocytosis.