26Repairing plasma membrane damage is vital to eukaryotic cell survival. Membrane shedding is 27 thought to be key to this repair process, but a detailed view of how the process occurs is still 28 missing. Here we used electron cryotomography to image the ultrastructural details of plasma 29 membrane wound healing. We found that filopodia-like protrusions are built at damage sites, 30 accompanied by retraction of neighboring filopodia, and that these repurposed protrusions act 31 as scaffolds for membrane shedding. This suggests a new role for filopodia as reservoirs of 32 membrane and actin for plasma membrane damage repair. Damage-induced shedding was 33 dependent on F-actin dynamics and Myo1a, as well as Vps4B, an important component of the
34ESCRT machinery. Thus we find that damage shedding is more complex than current models of 35 simple vesiculation from flat membrane domains. Rather, we observe structural similarities 36 between damage-mediated shedding and constitutive shedding from enterocytes that argue for 37 conservation of a general membrane shedding mechanism.
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Main 39Maintaining the integrity of the plasma membrane is critical for the survival of eukaryotic cells, 40 and cells exhibit a rapid response to plasma membrane injury. Injury may include mechanical 41 damage, chemical insults or the introduction of foreign pore-forming proteins such as the 42 bacterial toxin streptolysin O (SLO) or the perforin secreted by cytotoxic T lymphocytes and 43 natural killer cells 1-3 . Laser ablation of the plasma membrane elicits similar responses 2 .
44Following damage, a rapid influx of Ca 2+ and ensuing exocytosis of lysosomes occurs 4-6 and the 45 membrane is resealed within a few seconds to a few minutes. Several models, not mutually 46 exclusive, have been proposed for how resealing occurs: (1) in what is known as the "patch 47 model", a damaged region is replaced by fusion of an intracellular vesicle with the plasma 48 membrane, sloughing off the damaged membrane in the process 7 ; (2) in the endocytic model, 49 damaged regions are internalized by endocytosis 3, 8 ; and (3) in the shedding model, damaged 50 regions bud from the plasma membrane and are shed as extracellular vesicles 2 . While the patch 51 model has not yet been validated experimentally, evidence exists for both endocytosis and52shedding. For example, SLO-induced pores have been shown to be eliminated by both 53 endocytosis 9 and shedding 1, 10, 11 . Several pieces of recent evidence suggest that shedding may 54 be the dominant mechanism for plasma membrane resealing. First, repair occurs even at low 55 temperature, a condition that stalls other mechanisms, including endocytosis 12 . Second, after 56 SLO treatment, SLO-containing vesicles are released in an annexin-dependent process 10, 11 .
57Third, extracellular vesicle-like structures are observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) 58 at sites of laser damage 2 . And finally, Endosomal Sorting Complexes Required for Transport 59 (ESCRT), known to be involved in membrane remodeling...