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Molecular and Cellular Biology, October 2009, p. 5564-5577, Vol. 29, No. 20
0270-7306/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/MCB.00590-09
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

A Role for Polypyrimidine Tract Binding Protein in the Establishment of Focal Adhesions{triangledown} ,{dagger}

Ivan Babic, Shalini Sharma, and Douglas L. Black*

Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Medical Genetics, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095

Received 5 May 2009/ Returned for modification 29 May 2009/ Accepted 28 July 2009

Polypyrimidine tract binding protein (PTB) is a widely expressed RNA binding protein. In the nucleus PTB regulates the splicing of alternative exons, while in the cytoplasm it can affect mRNA stability, translation, and localization. Here we demonstrate that PTB transiently localizes to the cytoplasm and to protrusions in the cellular edge of mouse embryo fibroblasts during adhesion to fibronectin and the early stages of cell spreading. This cytoplasmic PTB is associated with transcripts encoding the focal adhesion scaffolding proteins vinculin and alpha-actinin 4. We demonstrate that vinculin mRNA colocalizes with PTB to cytoplasmic protrusions and that PTB depletion reduces vinculin mRNA at the cellular edge and limits the size of focal adhesions. The loss of PTB also alters cell morphology and limits the ability of cells to spread after adhesion. These data indicate that during the initial stages of cell adhesion, PTB shuttles from the nucleus to the cytoplasm and influences focal adhesion formation through coordinated control of scaffolding protein mRNAs.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, UCLA, 5-748 MacDonald Research Laboratories, 675 Charles E. Young Drive South, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1662. Phone: (310) 794-7946. Fax: (310) 267-0344. E-mail: dougb{at}microbio.ucla.edu

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 10 August 2009.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://mcb.asm.org/.

Molecular and Cellular Biology, October 2009, p. 5564-5577, Vol. 29, No. 20
0270-7306/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/MCB.00590-09
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.





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