Blood platelet aggregation must be tightly controlled to promote clotting at injury sites but avoid inappropriate occlusion of blood vessels. Thrombin, which cleaves and activates Gq-coupled protease-activated receptors, and collagen-related peptide, which activates the receptor glycoprotein VI, stimulate platelets to aggregate and form thrombi. Coincident activation by these two agonists synergizes, causing the exposure of phosphatidylserine on the cell surface, which is a marker of cell death in many cell types. Phosphatidylserine exposure is also essential to produce additional thrombin on platelet surfaces, which contributes to thrombosis. We found that activation of either thrombin receptors or glycoprotein VI alone produced a calcium signal that was largely dependent only on store-operated Ca(2+) entry. In contrast, experiments with platelets from knockout mice showed that the presence of both ligands activated nonselective cation channels of the transient receptor potential C (TRPC) family, TRPC3 and TRPC6. These channels principally allowed entry of Na(+), which coupled to reverse-mode Na(+)/Ca(2+) exchange to allow calcium influx and thereby contribute to Ca(2+) signaling and phosphatidylserine exposure. Thus, TRPC channels act as coincidence detectors to coordinate responses to multiple signals in cells, thereby indirectly mediating in platelets an increase in intracellular calcium concentrations and exposure of prothrombotic phosphatidylserine.
The constitutively active TRPC1/C4-dependent BGCE fine-tunes Ca(2+) cycling in beating adult cardiomyocytes. TRPC1/C4-gene inactivation protects against development of maladaptive cardiac remodelling without altering cardiac or extracardiac functions contributing to this pathogenesis.
Background: TRPM3 proteins form Ca 2ϩ permeable ion channels involved in insulin secretion and pain perception. Results: A domain indispensable for TRPM3 channel function (ICF) is subject to alternative splicing. Conclusion: This domain contributes essentially to the formation of TRPM channels and removing it by splicing modulates TRPM3-mediated Ca 2ϩ signaling. Significance: Alternative splicing of the ICF domain regulates biological functions attributed to TRPM3.
BackgroundThe majority of protein isoforms arise from alternative splicing of the encoding primary RNA transcripts. To understand the significance of single splicing events, reliable techniques are needed to determine their incidence. However, existing methods are labour-intensive, error-prone or of limited use.ResultsHere, we present an improved method to determine the relative incidence of transcripts that arise from alternative splicing at a single site. Splice variants were quantified within a single sample using one-step reverse transcription quantitative PCR. Amplification products obtained with variant specific primer pairs were compared to those obtained with primer pairs common to both variants. The identities of variant specific amplicons were simultaneously verified by melt curve analysis. Independent calculations of the relative incidence of each variant were performed. Since the relative incidences of variants have to add upto 100 %, the method provides an internal control to monitor experimental errors and uniform reverse transcription. The reliability of the method was tested using mixtures of cDNA templates as well as RNA samples from different sources.ConclusionThe method described here, is easy to set up and does not need unrelated reference genes and time consuming, error-prone standard curves. It provides a reliable and precise technique to distinguish small differences of the relative incidence of two splice variants.
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