Ezrin, a membrane–actin cytoskeleton linker, which participates in epithelial cell morphogenesis, is held inactive in the cytoplasm through an intramolecular interaction. Phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2) binding and the phosphorylation of threonine 567 (T567) are involved in the activation process that unmasks both membrane and actin binding sites. Here, we demonstrate that ezrin binding to PIP2, through its NH2-terminal domain, is required for T567 phosphorylation and thus for the conformational activation of ezrin in vivo. Furthermore, we found that the T567D mutation mimicking T567 phosphorylation bypasses the need for PIP2 binding for unmasking both membrane and actin binding sites. However, PIP2 binding and T567 phosphorylation are both necessary for the correct apical localization of ezrin and for its role in epithelial cell morphogenesis. These results establish that PIP2 binding and T567 phosphorylation act sequentially to allow ezrin to exert its cellular functions.

Ezrin, a membrane cytoskeleton linker, is involved in cellular functions, including epithelial cell morphogenesis and adhesion. A mutant form of ezrin, ezrin T567D, maintains the protein in an open conformation, which when expressed in Madin-Darby canine kidney cells causes extensive formation of lamellipodia and altered cell-cell contacts at low cell density. Furthermore, these cells do not form tubules when grown in a collagen type I matrix. While measuring the activity of Rho family GTPases, we found that Rac1, but not RhoA or Cdc 42, is activated in ezrin T567D-expressing cells, compared with cells expressing wild-type ezrin. Together with Rac1 activation, we observed an accumulation of E-cadherin in intracellular compartments and a concomitant decrease in the level of E-cadherin present at the plasma membrane. This effect could be reversed with a dominant negative form of Rac1, N17Rac1. We show that after a calcium switch, the delivery of E-cadherin from an internalized pool to the plasma membrane is greatly delayed in ezrin T567D-producing cells. In confluent cells, ezrin T567D production decreases the rate of E-cadherin internalization. Our results identify a new role for ezrin in cell adhesion through the activation of the GTPase Rac1 and the trafficking of E-cadherin to the plasma membrane. INTRODUCTIONThe ezrin, radixin, and moesin (ERM) proteins act as linkers between the plasma membrane and the actin cytoskeleton. They have been implicated in the organization of specific domains of the plasma membrane, such as the apical domain of epithelial cells, the immunological synapse, or the formation of uropods Crepaldi et al., 1997;Serrador et al., 1997;Allenspach et al., 2001;Delon et al., 2001;Roumier et al., 2001). Their functions are regulated by changes in their conformation. ERM proteins exist in the cytoplasm as dormant monomers in which the F-actin cytoskeleton and the plasma membrane binding sites are masked. This closed conformation is due to an intramolecular N-to C-ERM association domain (ERMAD) interaction Gary and Bretscher, 1995). Thus, abrogation of the N/C-ERMAD interaction is required to "open up" the molecules and to expose their cryptic binding sites . Two factors have been implicated in the activation of ERM proteins. The binding to phosphatidylinositol 4,5-biphosphate is required for their interaction with actin in vitro and with membrane proteins in vivo (Nakamura et al., 1999;Barret et al., 2000). In addition, phosphorylation of a conserved threonine residue in the C-ERMAD, T567, inhibits the N/C-ERMAD interaction in vitro (Matsui et al., 1998;Nakamura et al., 1999) and in vivo, converts inactive oligomers to active monomers . Expression of an ezrin mutant, ezrin T567D, which mimics its phosphorylation, induces lamellipodia formation in nonconfluent cells and tufts of microvilli in confluent cells. Moreover, production of ezrin T567D perturbs the organization of epithelial cell monolayers (Yonemura et al., 1999;Gautreau et al., 2000).A number of studies have implicated ERM proteins in...

The mechanisms underlying functional interactions between ERM (ezrin, radixin, moesin) proteins and Rho GTPases are not well understood. Here we characterized the interaction between ezrin and a novel Rho guanine nucleotide exchange factor, PLEKHG6. We show that ezrin recruits PLEKHG6 to the apical pole of epithelial cells where PLEKHG6 induces the formation of microvilli and membrane ruffles. These morphological changes are inhibited by dominant negative forms of RhoG. Indeed, we found that PLEKHG6 activates RhoG and to a much lesser extent Rac1. In addition we show that ezrin forms a complex with PLEKHG6 and RhoG. Furthermore, we detected a ternary complex between ezrin, PLEKHG6, and the RhoG effector ELMO. We demonstrate that PLEKHG6 and ezrin are both required in macropinocytosis. After down-regulation of either PLEKHG6 or ezrin expression, we observed an inhibition of dextran uptake in EGF-stimulated A431 cells. Altogether, our data indicate that ezrin allows the local activation of RhoG at the apical pole of epithelial cells by recruiting upstream and downstream regulators of RhoG and that both PLEKHG6 and ezrin are required for efficient macropinocytosis. INTRODUCTIONThe membrane-cytoskeleton linker ezrin is mainly expressed in epithelial cells where it associates to the apical actin-rich structures such as microvilli (Berryman et al., 1993(Berryman et al., , 1995. Recent genetic analyses revealed that ezrin is essential for the morphogenesis of epithelial cells (Fiévet et al., 2007). In ezrin Ϫ/Ϫ mice, morphological defects in the apical domain of intestinal and retinal pigment epithelial cells have been observed (Saotome et al., 2004;Bonilha et al., 2006). In parietal cells, ezrin knockdown impairs the formation of canalicular apical membrane, resulting in severe achlorhydria (Tamura et al., 2005).How ezrin participates in the assembly of the apical actinrich structures such as microvilli is still poorly understood. The association of ezrin and the highly related proteins radixin and moesin with the cortical actin cytoskeleton is strictly regulated. ERM (ezrin, radixin, moesin) proteins contain a conserved globular N-terminal domain, called the FERM domain (Four point one ezrin, radixin, moesin), involved in the binding to both phosphatidylinositol 4,5 bisphosphate (PIP 2 ; Barret et al., 2000) and plasma membrane proteins and a C-terminal F-actin-binding domain that resides in the last 34 amino acids (Turunen et al., 1994;Bretscher et al., 2002). In the cytoplasm, ERM proteins exist in a closed conformation because of an intramolecular interaction between the N-terminal domain and the last 100 amino acids called N-and C-ERMAD (ERM association domain), respectively . This intramolecular association masks the binding sites for plasma membrane proteins and F-actin. An activation step is required to disrupt this association that occurs through conformational changes induced by sequential binding to PIP 2 and phosphorylation of a conserved C-terminal threonine residue (T567 in ezrin; Matsui et al., 1998;Fié...

We report that ERM proteins interact with Vps11, a subunit of the HOPS complex, and that this interaction is required for the delivery of EGFR to lysosomes. We demonstrate that ERM proteins tune the maturation of endosomes through their interaction with the HOPS complex by modulating the kinetics of recruitment of Rab7 on the endosomes.