SUBCELLULAR-DISTRIBUTION OF RAS IN HUMAN AND MURINE FIBROBLASTS

Ras proteins play a significant role in signal transduction in respons e to growth factors and in cell transformation. To be active, ias has to be translocated to the cell membrane. Since subcellular distributio n has been mainly studied in vector-transformed cells which highly exp ress ras proteins, and it has been difficult to detect ras in cells ex pressing the protein at physiological levels, we studied subcellular d istribution in human and murine fibroblasts. Here we show for the firs t time that a significant amount of ras is associated with the membran e skeleton and the cytoskeleton. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.