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The Company of Biologists, Biology Open, 7(5), p. 962-969, 2016

DOI: 10.1242/bio.018572

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Expression and preliminary characterization of human MICU2

Journal article published in 2016 by Dan Li, Wenping Wu, Hairun Pei ORCID, Qiang Wei, Qingzhan Yang, Jimin Zheng, Zongchao Jia ORCID
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

ABSTRACT MICU2 has been reported to interact with MICU1 and participate in the regulation of mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake, although the molecular determinants underlying the function of MICU2 is unknown. In order to characterize MICU2 we screened a series of N-terminal and C-terminal truncations and obtained constructs which can be expressed in abundance, giving rise to soluble samples to enable subsequent characterizations. Size exclusion chromatography (SEC) and multi-angle laser light scattering (MALLS) revealed that MICU2 exists as a monomer in Ca2+-free conditions but forms a dimer in Ca2+-bound conditions. Unlike MICU1, the C-helix domain of MICU2 exhibits no influence on protein conformation in both Ca2+-free and Ca2+-bound forms. Furthermore, mutation of the first EF-hand abolishes the ability of MICU2 to switch to a dimer in the presence of Ca2+, indicating that the first EF-hand is not only involved in Ca2+ binding but also in conformational change. Our pull-down and co-immunoprecipitation assays suggest that, in addition to disulfide bonds, salt bridges also contribute to MICU1-MICU2 heterodimer formation.