Functional analysis of CASK transcript variants expressed in human brain

PLoS One. 2021 Jun 16;16(6):e0253223. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0253223. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

The calcium-/calmodulin dependent serine protein kinase (CASK) belongs to the membrane-associated guanylate kinases (MAGUK) family of proteins. It fulfils several different cellular functions, ranging from acting as a scaffold protein to transcription control, as well as regulation of receptor sorting. CASK functions depend on the interaction with a variety of partners, for example neurexin, liprin-α, Tbr1 and SAP97. So far, it is uncertain how these seemingly unrelated interactions and resulting functions of CASK are regulated. Here, we show that alternative splicing of CASK can guide the binding affinity of CASK isoforms to distinct interaction partners. We report seven different variants of CASK expressed in the fetal human brain. Four out of these variants are not present in the NCBI GenBank database as known human variants. Functional analyses showed that alternative splicing affected the affinities of CASK variants for several of the tested interaction partners. Thus, we observed a clear correlation of the presence of one splice insert with poor binding of CASK to SAP97, supported by molecular modelling. The alternative splicing and distinct properties of CASK variants in terms of protein-protein interaction should be taken into consideration for future studies.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Alternative Splicing
  • Brain / embryology
  • Brain / metabolism*
  • Discs Large Homolog 1 Protein / metabolism
  • Female
  • Guanylate Kinases / chemistry
  • Guanylate Kinases / metabolism*
  • Guanylate Kinases / physiology
  • Humans
  • Models, Molecular
  • Protein Isoforms / chemistry
  • Protein Isoforms / metabolism
  • Protein Isoforms / physiology

Substances

  • DLG1 protein, human
  • Discs Large Homolog 1 Protein
  • Protein Isoforms
  • CASK kinases
  • Guanylate Kinases

Grants and funding

This work was supported by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Kr 1321/7-1, to H.-J.K.). F.L.H. was supported by the Research Promotion Fund of the Faculty of Medicine (FFM) of the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf and by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (KU 1240/10-1). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.