How cells haul down their “eat me” flags

You doctor absolutely needs to know this in order to create a stroke protocol that stops the neuronal cascade of death.
Simply titled here:

Caspase-mediated cleavage of phospholipid flippase for apoptotic phosphatidylserine exposure

1. Katsumori Segawa¹,
2. Sachiko Kurata¹,
3. Yuichi Yanagihashi¹,
4. Thijn R. Brummelkamp²,
5. Fumihiko Matsuda³,
6. Shigekazu Nagata¹,⁴,*

+ Author Affiliations

1. ¹Department of Medical Chemistry, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Yoshida-Konoe, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan.
2. ²Netherlands Cancer Institute, Plesmanlaan 121, 1066 CX Amsterdam, Netherlands.
3. ³Center for Genomic Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Yoshida-Konoe, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan.
4. ⁴Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology, Japan Science and Technology Corporation, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan.

1. ↵*Corresponding author. E-mail: snagata@mfour.med.kyoto-u.ac.jp

• Abstract
• Editor's Summary

Phospholipids are asymmetrically distributed in the plasma membrane. This asymmetrical distribution is disrupted during apoptosis, exposing phosphatidylserine (PtdSer) on the cell surface. Using a haploid genetic screen in human cells, we found that ATP11C (adenosine triphosphatase type 11C) and CDC50A (cell division cycle protein 50A) are required for aminophospholipid translocation from the outer to the inner plasma membrane leaflet; that is, they display flippase activity. ATP11C contained caspase recognition sites, and mutations at these sites generated caspase-resistant ATP11C without affecting its flippase activity. Cells expressing caspase-resistant ATP11C did not expose PtdSer during apoptosis and were not engulfed by macrophages, which suggests that inactivation of the flippase activity is required for apoptotic PtdSer exposure. CDC50A-deficient cells displayed PtdSer on their surface and were engulfed by macrophages, indicating that PtdSer is sufficient as an “eat me” signal.

• Received for publication 3 March 2014.
• Accepted for publication 13 May 2014.

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