Abstract
Small GTPases of the Rho family are crucial regulators of actin cytoskeleton rearrangements. Rho is activated by members of the Rho guanine-nucleotide exchange factor (GEF) family; however, mechanisms that regulate RhoGEFs are not well understood. This report demonstrates that PDZ-RhoGEF, a member of a subfamily of RhoGEFs that contain regulator of G protein signaling domains, is partially localized at or near the plasma membranes in 293T, COS-7, and Neuro2a cells, and this localization is coincident with cortical actin. Disruption of the cortical actin cytoskeleton in cells by using latrunculin B prevents the peri-plasma membrane localization of PDZ-RhoGEF. Coimmunoprecipitation and F-actin cosedimentation assays demonstrate that PDZ-RhoGEF binds to actin. Extensive deletion mutagenesis revealed the presence of a novel 25-amino acid sequence in PDZ-RhoGEF, located at amino acids 561-585, that is necessary and sufficient for localization to the actin cytoskeleton and interaction with actin. Last, PDZ-RhoGEF mutants that fail to interact with the actin cytoskeleton display enhanced Rho-dependent signaling compared with wild-type PDZ-RhoGEF. These results identify interaction with the actin cytoskeleton as a novel function for PDZ-RhoGEF, thus implicating actin interaction in organizing PDZ-RhoGEF signaling.