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    Mol Biol Cell. 2006 Jun;17(6):2617-25. Epub 2006 Mar 29.

    Regulation of synaptic transmission by RAB-3 and RAB-27 in Caenorhabditis elegans.

    Mahoney TR, Liu Q, Itoh T, Luo S, Hadwiger G, Vincent R, Wang ZW, Fukuda M, Nonet ML.

    Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA.

    Rab small GTPases are involved in the transport of vesicles between different membranous organelles. RAB-3 is an exocytic Rab that plays a modulatory role in synaptic transmission. Unexpectedly, mutations in the Caenorhabditis elegans RAB-3 exchange factor homologue, aex-3, cause a more severe synaptic transmission defect as well as a defecation defect not seen in rab-3 mutants. We hypothesized that AEX-3 may regulate a second Rab that regulates these processes with RAB-3. We found that AEX-3 regulates another exocytic Rab, RAB-27. Here, we show that C. elegans RAB-27 is localized to synapse-rich regions pan-neuronally and is also expressed in intestinal cells. We identify aex-6 alleles as containing mutations in rab-27. Interestingly, aex-6 mutants exhibit the same defecation defect as aex-3 mutants. aex-6; rab-3 double mutants have behavioral and pharmacological defects similar to aex-3 mutants. In addition, we demonstrate that RBF-1 (rabphilin) is an effector of RAB-27. Therefore, our work demonstrates that AEX-3 regulates both RAB-3 and RAB-27, that both RAB-3 and RAB-27 regulate synaptic transmission, and that RAB-27 potentially acts through its effector RBF-1 to promote soluble N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor attachment protein receptor (SNARE) function.

    PMID: 16571673 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

    PMCID: 1474797

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