Membrane-bound Gaussia luciferase as a tool to track shedding of membrane proteins from the surface of extracellular vesicles

Mikołaj Piotr Zaborowski*, Pike See Cheah, Xuan Zhang, Isabella Bushko, Kyungheon Lee, Alessandro Sammarco, Valentina Zappulli, Sybren Lein Nikola Maas, Ryan M. Allen, Purva Rumde, Bence György, Massimo Aufiero, Markus W. Schweiger, Charles Pin Kuang Lai, Ralph Weissleder, Hakho Lee, Kasey C. Vickers, Bakhos A. Tannous, Xandra O. Breakefield

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) released by cells play a role in intercellular communication. Reporter and targeting proteins can be modified and exposed on the surface of EVs to investigate their half-life and biodistribution. A characterization of membrane-bound Gaussia luciferase (mbGluc) revealed that its signal was detected also in a form smaller than common EVs (<70 nm). We demonstrated that mbGluc initially exposed on the surface of EVs, likely undergoes proteolytic cleavage and processed fragments of the protein are released into the extracellular space in active form. Based on this observation, we developed a new assay to quantitatively track shedding of membrane proteins from the surface of EVs. We used this assay to show that ectodomain shedding in EVs is continuous and is mediated by specific proteases, e.g. metalloproteinases. Here, we present a novel tool to study membrane protein cleavage and release using both in vitro and in vivo models.

Original languageEnglish
Article number17387
Pages (from-to)1-16
JournalScientific Reports
Volume9
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 22 Nov 2019

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