Lipid rafts are microdomains present within membranes of most cell types. These membrane microdomains, which are enriched in cholesterol and glycosphingolipids, have been implicated in the regulation of certain signal transduction and membrane traffic pathways. To investigate the possibility that lipid rafts organize exocytotic pathways in neuroendocrine cells, we examined the association of proteins of the exocytotic machinery with rafts purified from PC12 cells. The target soluble N- ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor attachment protein receptor (tSNARE) proteins syntaxin 1A and synaptosomal-associated protein of 25 kDa (SNAP-25) were both found to be highly enriched in lipid rafts (≈25-fold). The vesicle SNARE vesicle-associated membrane protein (VAMP)2 was also present in raft fractions, but the extent of this recovery was variable. However, further analysis revealed that the majority of VAMP2 was associated with a distinct class of raft with different detergent solubility characteristics to the rafts containing syntaxin 1A and SNAP-25. Interestingly, no other studied secretory proteins were significantly associated with lipid rafts, including SNARE effector proteins such as nSec1. Chemical crosslinking experiments showed that syntaxin1A/SNAP-25 heterodimers were equally present in raft and nonraft fractions, whereas syntaxin1A/nSec1 complexes were detected only in nonraft fractions. SDS-resistance assays revealed that raft-associated syntaxin1A/SNAP-25 heterodimers were able to interact with VAMP2. Finally, reduction of cellular cholesterol levels decreased the extent of regulated exocytosis of dopamine from PC12 cells. The results described suggest that the interaction of SNARE proteins with lipid rafts is important for exocytosis and may allow structural and spatial organization of the secretory machinery.

Recent studies have indicated that endothelial nitric-oxide synthase (eNOS) is regulated by reversible phosphorylation in intact endothelial cells. AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) has previously been demonstrated to phosphorylate and activate eNOS at Ser-1177 in vitro, yet the function of AMPK in endothelium is poorly characterized. We therefore determined whether activation of AMPK with 5′-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide ribonucleoside (AICAR) stimulated NO production in human aortic endothelial cells. AICAR caused the time- and dose-dependent stimulation of AMPK activity, with a concomitant increase in eNOS Ser-1177 phosphorylation and NO production. AMPK was associated with immunoprecipitates of eNOS, yet this was unaffected by increasing concentrations of AICAR. AICAR also caused the time- and dose-dependent stimulation of protein kinase B phosphorylation. To confirm that the effects of AICAR were indeed mediated by AMPK, we utilized adenovirus-mediated expression of a dominant negative AMPK mutant. Expression of dominant negative AMPK attenuated AICAR-stimulated AMPK activity, eNOS Ser-1177 phosphorylation and NO production and was without effect on AICAR-stimulated protein kinase B Ser-473 phosphorylation or NO production stimulated by insulin or A23187. These data suggest that AICAR-stimulated NO production is mediated by AMPK as a consequence of increased Ser-1177 phosphorylation of eNOS. We propose that stimuli that result in the acute activation of AMPK activity in endothelial cells stimulate NO production, at least in part due to phosphorylation and activation of eNOS. Regulation of endothelial AMPK therefore provides an additional mechanism by which local vascular tone may be controlled.

The dual Rab11/Arf binding proteins, family of Rab11‐interacting proteins FIP3 and FIP4 function in the delivery of recycling endosomes to the cleavage furrow and are, together with Rab11, essential for completion of abscission, the terminal step of cytokinesis. Here, we report that both FIP3 and FIP4 bind Arf6 in a nucleotide‐dependent manner but exhibit differential affinities for Rab11 and Arf6. Both FIP3 and FIP4 can form ternary complexes with Rab11 and Arf6. Arf6 is localised to the furrow and midbody and we show that Arf6‐GTP functions to localise FIP3 and FIP4 to midbodies during cytokinesis. Exo70p, a component of the Exocyst complex, also localises to the furrow of dividing cells and interacts with Arf6. We show that depletion of Exo70p leads to cytokinesis failure and an impairment of FIP3 and Rab11 localisation to the furrow and midbody. Moreover, Exo70p co‐immunoprecipitates FIP3 and FIP4. Hence, we propose that FIP3 and FIP4 serve to couple Rab11‐positive vesicle traffic from recycling endosomes to the cleavage furrow/midbody where they are tethered prior to fusion events via interactions with Arf6 and the Exocyst.

Two novel facilitative glucose transporter-like cDNAs have been isolated from human small intestine and fetal skeletal muscle cDNA libraries by low stringency cross-hybridization with a fragment of the human erythrocyte/GLUT1 facilitative glucose transporter cDNA. One encodes a 501-amino acid facilitative glucose transporter, designated as the small intestine/GLUT5 isoform, having 41.7, 40.0, 38.7, and 41.6% identity with the previously described human erythrocyte/GLUT1, liver/GLUT2, brain/GLUT3, and muscle-fat/GLUT4 isoforms, respectively. GLUT5 mRNA is expressed at highest levels in small intestine and at much lower levels in kidney, skeletal muscle, and adipose tissue. Expression of in vitro synthesized human GLUT5 mRNA in Xenopus laevis oocytes indicates that the GLUT5 protein is a cytochalasin B-sensitive glucose carrier. The gene encoding the GLUT5 protein is located on the short arm of human chromosome 1. The second facilitative transporter-like cDNA sequence, designated GLUT6, is part of an 11-kilobase transcript that is expressed in all tissues examined. The sequence of a partial-length GLUT6 cDNA having an insert of 3.4 kilobase pairs revealed a region of 1.5 kilobase pairs that has 79.6% identity with the human brain/GLUT3 facilitative glucose transporter cDNA. However, because of the presence of multiple stop codons and frame shifts, this sequence cannot encode a functional glucose transporter protein. The region of facilitative glucose transporter nucleotide sequence homology in the GLUT6 transcript may have arisen by insertion of a reverse-transcribed GLUT3 transcript into the untranslated region of another gene. The GLUT6 gene is located on the long arm of human chromosome 5.