Highly conserved cysteines are involved in the oligomerization of occludin-redox dependency of the second extracellular loop

To identify hypoxia-sensitive binding sites, we investigated the consequences of amino-acid substitutions of highly conserved cysteines in human occludin, under normal and hypoxic incubations.

Our findings support the new concept that occludin acts as a hypoxiasensor and contributes toward regulating the TJ assembly redox dependently. This is of pathogenic relevance for tissue barrier injury with reducing conditions. The ECL2 disulfide might be a model for four TMD proteins in TJs with two conserved cysteines in an ECL.

(i) The extracellular loop 2 (ECL2) showed homophilic trans- and cis-association between opposing cells and along the cell membrane, respectively, caused by a loop properly folded via an intraloop disulfide bridge between the shielded C216 and C237. Hypoxia and reductants prevented the associations. (ii) C82 in TMD1 directly cis-associated without disulfide formation. (iii) C76 in TMD1 and C148 in TMD2 limited the trans-interaction; C76 also limited occludin-related paracellular tightness and changed the strand morphology of claudin-1. (iv) The diminished binding strength found after substituting C82, C216, or C237 was accompanied by increased occludin mobility in the cell membrane. Innovation: The data enable the first experimentally proven structural model of occludin and its homophilic interaction sites, in which the ECL2, via intraloop disulfide formation, has a central role in occludin's hypoxia-sensitive oligomerization and to regulate the structure of TJs.