Department of Biology & BK21-Plus Research Team for Bioactive Control Technology, College of Natural Sciences, Chosun University, Gwangju, 61452, Republic of Korea.
J Microbiol. 2017 Sep;55(9):730-736. doi: 10.1007/s12275-017-7221-x. Epub 2017 Sep 2.
FERM domain-containing proteins are involved in diverse biological and pathological processes, including cell-substrate adhesion, cell-cell adhesion, multicellular development, and cancer metastasis. In this study, we determined the functions of FrmB, a FERM domain-containing protein, in the cell morphology, cell adhesion, and multicellular development of Dictyostelium cells. Our results show that FrmB appears to play an important role in regulating the size of developmental structures. frmB null cells showed prolonged aggregation during development, resulting in increased size of developmental structures, such as mounds and fruiting bodies, compared to those of wild-type cells, whereas FrmB overexpressing cells exhibited decreased size of developmental structures. These results suggest that FrmB may be necessary for limiting the sizes of developmental structures. Loss of FrmB also resulted in decreased cell-substrate adhesion and slightly increased cell area, suggesting that FrmB had important roles in the regulation of cell adhesion and cell morphology. These studies would contribute to our understanding of the intertwined and overlapped functions of FERM domain-containing proteins.
FERM 结构域蛋白参与多种生物学和病理学过程，包括细胞-基质黏附、细胞-细胞黏附、多细胞发育和癌症转移。在这项研究中，我们确定了 FERM 结构域蛋白 FrmB 在盘基网柄菌细胞的细胞形态、细胞黏附和多细胞发育中的功能。我们的结果表明，FrmB 似乎在调节发育结构的大小方面发挥着重要作用。frmB 缺失细胞在发育过程中表现出延长的聚集，导致发育结构（如土丘和子实体）的大小增加，与野生型细胞相比，而 FrmB 过表达细胞则表现出发育结构大小的减小。这些结果表明 FrmB 可能对于限制发育结构的大小是必要的。FrmB 的缺失还导致细胞-基质黏附减少和细胞面积略有增加，表明 FrmB 在细胞黏附和细胞形态的调节中具有重要作用。这些研究将有助于我们理解 FERM 结构域蛋白的相互交织和重叠的功能。
