McMahon Laura, Muriel Joaquin M, Roberts Brett, Quinn Martyn, Johnstone Iain L
The Wellcome Centre for Molecular Parasitology, The University of Glasgow, Anderson College, Glasgow G11 6NU, United Kingdom.
Mol Biol Cell. 2003 Apr;14(4):1366-78. doi: 10.1091/mbc.e02-08-0479.
A ubiquitous feature of collagens is protein interaction, the trimerization of monomers to form a triple helix followed by higher order interactions during the formation of the mature extracellular matrix. The Caenorhabditis elegans cuticle is a complex extracellular matrix consisting predominantly of cuticle collagens, which are encoded by a family of approximately 154 genes. We identify two discrete interacting sets of collagens and show that they form functionally distinct matrix substructures. We show that mutation in or RNA-mediated interference of a gene encoding a collagen belonging to one interacting set affects the assembly of other members of that set, but not those belonging to the other set. During cuticle synthesis, the collagen genes are expressed in a distinct temporal series, which we hypothesize exists to facilitate partner finding and the formation of appropriate interactions between encoded collagens. Consistent with this hypothesis, we find for the two identified interacting sets that the individual members of each set are temporally coexpressed, whereas the two sets are expressed approximately 2 h apart during matrix synthesis.
胶原蛋白的一个普遍特征是蛋白质相互作用，即单体三聚化形成三螺旋结构，随后在成熟细胞外基质形成过程中发生更高层次的相互作用。秀丽隐杆线虫的角质层是一种复杂的细胞外基质，主要由角质层胶原蛋白组成，这些胶原蛋白由大约154个基因组成的家族编码。我们鉴定出两组离散的相互作用胶原蛋白，并表明它们形成功能不同的基质亚结构。我们发现，编码属于一个相互作用组的胶原蛋白的基因突变或RNA介导的干扰会影响该组其他成员的组装，但不会影响另一组的成员。在角质层合成过程中，胶原蛋白基因以独特的时间序列表达，我们推测这一序列的存在是为了便于寻找伴侣以及编码的胶原蛋白之间形成适当的相互作用。与这一假设一致，我们发现，对于两个已鉴定的相互作用组，每组的各个成员在时间上共表达，而在基质合成过程中，这两组的表达时间相隔约2小时。
