Research article

Differential role of beta-arrestin ubiquitination in agonist-promoted down-regulation of M₁ vs M₂ muscarinic acetylcholine receptors

Valerie A Mosser¹ , Kymry T Jones² , Katie M Hoffman¹ , Nael A McCarty² and Darrell A Jackson¹

¹  Department of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Health Professions and Biomedical Science, Skaggs Building Room 376, The University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812, USA

²  School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA

author email corresponding author email

Journal of Molecular Signaling 2008, 3:20doi:10.1186/1750-2187-3-20

Published:	3 December 2008

Abstract

Background

Sustained agonist-promoted ubiquitination of β-arrestin has been correlated with increased stability of the GPCR – β-arrestin complex. Moreover, abrogation of β-arrestin ubiquitination has been reported to inhibit receptor internalization with minimal effects on receptor degradation.

Results

Herein we report that agonist activation of M₁ mAChRs produces a sustained β-arrestin ubiquitination but no stable co-localization with β-arrestin. In contrast, sustained ubiquitination of β-arrestin by activation of M₂ mAChRs does result in stable co-localization between the M₂ mAChR and β-arrestin. Internalization of receptors was unaffected by proteasome inhibitors, but down-regulation was significantly reduced, suggesting a role for the ubiquitination machinery in promoting down-regulation of the receptors. Given the ubiquitination status of β-arrestin following agonist treatment, we sought to determine the effects of β-arrestin ubiquitination on M₁ and M₂ mAChR down-regulation. A constitutively ubiquitinated β-arrestin 2 chimera in which ubiquitin is fused to the C-terminus of β-arrestin 2 (YFP-β-arrestin 2-Ub) significantly increased agonist-promoted down-regulation of both M₁ and M₂ mAChRs, with the effect substantially higher on the M₂ mAChR. Based on this observation, we were interested in examining the effects of disruption of potential ubiquitination sites in the β-arrestin sequence on receptor down-regulation. Agonist-promoted internalization of the M₂ mAChR was not affected by expression of β-arrestin lysine mutants lacking putative ubiquitination sites, β-arrestin 2^{K18R, K107R, K108R, K207R, K296R}, while down-regulation and stable co-localiztion of the receptor with this β-arrestin lysine mutant were significantly reduced. Interestingly, expression of β-arrestin 2^{K18R, K107R, K108R, K207R, K296R} increased the agonist-promoted down-regulation of the M₁ mAChR but did not result in a stable co-localiztion of the receptor with this β-arrestin lysine mutant.

Conclusion

These findings indicate that ubiquitination of β-arrestin has a distinct role in the differential trafficking and degradation of M₁ and M₂ mAChRs.