Drosophila Dystroglycan is a target of O-mannosyltransferase activity of two protein O-mannosyltransferases, Rotated Abdomen and Twisted

Glycobiology. 2010 Mar;20(3):381-94. doi: 10.1093/glycob/cwp189. Epub 2009 Dec 7.

Abstract

Recent studies highlighted an emerging possibility of using Drosophila as a model system for investigating the mechanisms of human congenital muscular dystrophies, called dystroglycanopathies, resulting from the abnormal glycosylation of alpha-dystroglycan. Several of these diseases are associated with defects in O-mannosylation, one of the most prominent types of alpha-dystroglycan glycosylation mediated by two protein O-mannosyltransferases. Drosophila appears to possess homologs of all essential components of the mammalian dystroglycan-mediated pathway; however, the glycosylation of Drosophila Dystroglycan (DG) has not yet been explored. In this study, we characterized the glycosylation of Drosophila DG using a combination of glycosidase treatments, lectin blots, trypsin digestion, and mass spectrometry analyses. Our results demonstrated that DG extracellular domain is O-mannosylated in vivo. We found that the concurrent in vivo activity of the two Drosophila protein O-mannosyltransferases, Rotated Abdomen and Twisted, is required for O-mannosylation of DG. While our experiments unambiguously determined some O-mannose sites far outside of the mucin-type domain of DG, they also provided evidence that DG bears a significant amount of O-mannosylation within its central region including the mucin-type domain, and that O-mannose can compete with O-GalNAc glycosylation of DG. We found that Rotated Abdomen and Twisted could potentiate in vivo the dominant-negative effect of DG extracellular domain expression on crossvein development, which suggests that O-mannosylation can modulate the ligand-binding activity of DG. Taken together these results demonstrated that O-mannosylation of Dystroglycan is an evolutionarily ancient mechanism conserved between Drosophila and humans, suggesting that Drosophila can be a suitable model system for studying molecular and genetic mechanisms underlying human dystroglycanopathies.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Drosophila / enzymology*
  • Drosophila / metabolism
  • Drosophila Proteins / chemistry
  • Drosophila Proteins / metabolism*
  • Dystroglycans / chemistry
  • Dystroglycans / metabolism*
  • Mannosyltransferases / chemistry
  • Mannosyltransferases / metabolism*
  • Mass Spectrometry

Substances

  • Dg protein, Drosophila
  • Drosophila Proteins
  • Dystroglycans
  • Mannosyltransferases
  • rt protein, Drosophila
  • tw protein, Drosophila
  • protein O-mannosyltransferase