Pa. Appeddu et Bd. Shur, MOLECULAR ANALYSIS OF CELL-SURFACE BETA-1,4-GALACTOSYLTRANSFERASE FUNCTION DURING CELL-MIGRATION, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United Statesof America, 91(6), 1994, pp. 2095-2099
Despite the identification and characterization of cell surface recept
ors for the extracellular matrix, it is unknown how their relative exp
ression and cytoskeletal association regulate cell migration. Previous
studies have identified beta-1,4-galactosyltransferase (GalTase; EC 2
.4.1.38) on the surface of migrating cells, where it mediates cell mig
ration on basal lamina matrices by associating with the cytoskeleton a
nd binding to N-linked oligosaccharides in the E8 domain of laminin. I
n this study, the function of GalTase during cell migration was examin
ed directly by analyzing the migration rate of stably transfected cell
lines in which the relative level of surface GalTase and its ability
to associate with the cytoskeleton were altered. We show here that the
cytoskeleton contains a limiting, saturable, number of binding sites
for surface GalTase. Furthermore, the rate of cell migration was inver
sely related to the ability of surface GalTase to associate with the c
ytoskeleton. Elevating surface GalTase in excess of the number of cyto
skeleton-binding sites reduced the rate of cell migration, whereas dec
reasing the amount of surface GalTase available to bind the cytoskelet
on increased migration rates. These results show that the rate of cell
migration on basal lamina is directly dependent upon the expression o
f surface GalTase and the ability of this protein to associate with a
limiting number of cytoskeleton-binding sites.