Liu, Q. A., Hengartner, M. O. (November 1999) Human CED-6 encodes a functional homologue of the Caenorhabditis elegans engulfment protein CED-6. Current Biology, 9 (22). pp. 1347-50. ISSN 0960-9822 (Print)
Abstract
The rapid engulfment of apoptotic cells is a specialized innate immune response used by organisms to remove apoptotic cells. In mammals, several receptors that recognize apoptotic cells have been identified; molecules that transduce signals from these receptors to downstream cytoskeleton molecules have not been found, however [1] [2] [3]. Our previous analysis of the engulfment gene ced-6 in Caenorhabditis elegans has suggested that CED-6 is an adaptor protein that participates in a signal transduction pathway that mediates the specific recognition and engulfment of apoptotic cells [1]. Here, we describe our isolation and characterization of a human cDNA encoding a protein, hCED-6, with strong sequence similarity to C. elegans CED-6. As is the case with the worm protein, hCED-6 contains a phosphotyrosine-binding (PTB) domain and potential Src-homology domain 3 (SH3) binding sites. Both CED-6 and hCED-6 contain a predicted coiled-coil domain in the middle region. The hCED-6 protein lacks the extended carboxyl terminus found in worm CED-6; this carboxy-terminal extension appears not to be essential for CED-6 function in C. elegans, however. Overexpression of hCED-6 rescues the engulfment defect of ced-6 mutants in C. elegans significantly, suggesting that hCED-6 is a functional homologue of C. elegans CED-6. Human ced-6 is expressed widely in most human tissues. Thus, CED-6, and the CED-6 signal transduction pathway, might be conserved from C. elegans to humans and are present in most, if not all, human tissues.
| Item Type: | Paper |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Amino Acid Sequence Animals Apoptosis Caenorhabditis elegans/embryology/ genetics/metabolism Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins Comparative Study DNA, Complementary/genetics Expressed Sequence Tags Genetic Complementation Test Helminth Proteins/genetics Humans Molecular Sequence Data Open Reading Frames Organ Specificity Phosphoproteins/ genetics/physiology Protein Structure, Tertiary RNA, Messenger/analysis Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S. Sequence Alignment Sequence Homology, Amino Acid Species Specificity |
| Subjects: | organism description > animal > C elegans organs, tissues, organelles, cell types and functions > cell types and functions > cell functions > apoptosis organs, tissues, organelles, cell types and functions > cell types and functions > cell functions |
| CSHL Authors: | |
| Communities: | CSHL labs > Hengartner lab |
| Depositing User: | Kathleen Darby |
| Date: | 18 November 1999 |
| Date Deposited: | 22 Apr 2014 18:18 |
| Last Modified: | 30 Apr 2014 17:11 |
| Related URLs: | |
| URI: | https://repository.cshl.edu/id/eprint/29852 |
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