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bioRxiv · 10.1101/2020.05.21.108415

Structural Features and Oligomeric Nature of Human Podocin Domain

Mulukala Narasimha, S. K. K.·Irukuvajjula, S. S.·Kumar, K.·Garai, K.·Venkatesu, P.·Vadrevu, R.·Pasupulati, A. k.
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Abstract

Podocytes are crucial cells of the glomerular filtration unit and playing a vital role at the interface of the blood-urine barrier. Podocyte slit-diaphragm is a modified tight junction that facilitates size and shape-dependent permselectivity. Several proteins including podocin, nephrin, CD2AP, and TRPC6 form a macromolecular assembly and constitute the slit-diaphragm. Podocin is an integral membrane protein attached to the inner membrane of the podocyte via a short transmembrane region (101-125). The cytosolic N- and C-terminus help podocin to attain a hook-like structure. Podocin shares 44% homology with stomatin family proteins and similar to the stomatin proteins, podocin was shown to associate into higher-order oligomers at the site of slit-diaphragm. However, the stoichiometry of the homo-oligomers and how it partakes in the macromolecular assemblies with other slit-diaphragm proteins remains elusive. Here we investigated the oligomeric propensity of a truncated podocin construct (residues:126-350). We show that the podocin domain majorly homo-oligomerize into a 16mer. Circular dichroism and fluorescence spectroscopy suggest that the 16mer oligomer has considerable secondary structure and moderate tertiary packing.

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Mulukala Narasimha, S. K. K., Irukuvajjula, S. S., Kumar, K., Garai, K., Venkatesu, P., Vadrevu, R., Pasupulati, A. k.. 2020-05-22. Structural Features and Oligomeric Nature of Human Podocin Domain. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.21.108415

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