Abstract
Ena/VASP like protein, or EVL, is an actin-binding protein that regulates cancer cell lamellipodia protrusive activity and cell motility via an actomyosin contractility-dependent mechanism. The function of EVL in human lung endothelial cell (EC) barrier regulation, especially by the endogenous bioactive lipid mediator sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P), is largely unknown. In this current study, we demonstrated that EVL is an active component in S1P-mediated EC barrier enhancement and lamellipodia formation. Compared to other focal adhesion (FA) proteins such as paxillin, EVL protein expression is very low in human pulmonary endothelial cells (ECs). S1P (1 μM) challenge stimulates translocation of cytosolic EVL to FAs in ECs, which was attenuated by EVL knockdown (KD) by its selective siRNA. S1P also promoted significant EVL translocation to lamellipodia, further confirmed by tracking translocation of EVL-GFP fusion protein upon S1P stimulation in a time-dependent manner. In addition, S1P-mediated cortical actin filament formation is attenuated by EVL KD, further confirming the function of EVL in S1P-induced lamellipodia formation/cortical actin polymerization. S1P stimulates EVL phosphorylation by tyrosine kinase c-Abl which is attenuated by the c-Abl inhibitor, imatinib. Finally, EVL KD attenuated S1P-mediated EC barrier enhancement and paracellular gap resealing reflected by reduced transendothelial electrical resistance (TER) measurements. These findings confirm a novel role for EVL in human lung vascular barrier enhancement and cytoskeleton rearrangement by S1P.
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