Intracellular transport and molecular chaperone

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The accumulation of misfolded proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) evokes the ER stress response. The resultant outcomes are cytoprotective, but also pro-apoptotic. ER chaperones and misfolded proteins exit to the secretory pathway and are retrieved to the ER, during which process the KDEL receptor plays a significant role. Using an expression of a mutant KDEL receptor that lacks the ability for ligand recognition, we show that the impairment of retrieval by the KDEL receptor led to a mis-sorting of BiP, an ER chaperone that has a retrieval signal from the early secretory pathway, which induced intense ER stress response and an increase in susceptibility to ER stress in HeLa cells. Furthermore, we show that the ER stress response accompanied the activation of p38 MAP kinases and c-Jun amino-terminal kinases (JNKs) and that the expression of the mutant KDEL receptor suppressed the activation of p38 and JNK1 not JNK2. The effect of the expression of the mutant KDEL receptor was consistent with the effect of a specific inhibitor for p38 MAP kinases, since the inhibitor sensitized HeLa cells to ER stress. We also found that the activation of the KDEL receptor by the ligand induced the phosphorylation of p38 MAP kinases. These results indicate that the KDEL receptor participates in the ER stress response not only by its retrieval ability but also by modulating MAP kinase signalling, which may affect the outcomes of the mammalian ER stress response.