Abstract
The steroid hormone progesterone (P4) mediates many physiological processes through either nuclear receptors that modulate gene expression or membrane P4 receptors (mPRs) that mediate nongenomic signaling. mPR signaling remains poorly understood. Here we show that the topology of mPRβ is similar to adiponectin receptors and opposite to that of G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). Using Xenopus oocyte meiosis as a well-established physiological readout of nongenomic P4 signaling, we demonstrate that mPRβ signaling requires the adaptor protein APPL1 and the kinase Akt2. We further show that P4 induces clathrin-dependent endocytosis of mPRβ into signaling endosome, where mPR interacts transiently with APPL1 and Akt2 to induce meiosis. Our findings outline the early steps involved in mPR signaling and expand the spectrum of mPR signaling through the multitude of pathways involving APPL1.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | e3000901 |
| Journal | PLoS biology |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue number | 11 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 2 2020 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was funded by NPRP 7-709-3-195 from the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) (to KM) and from the Biomedical Research Program (BMRP) at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, a program funded by Qatar Foundation (to KM). The statements made herein are solely the responsibility of the authors. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. We are grateful to the microscopy core at WCMQ for the support.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Nader et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.