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Drosophila Stardust is a partner of Crumbs in the control of epithelial cell polarity

Nature volume 414, pages 638–643 (2001)Cite this article

Abstract

The polarized architecture of epithelial cells depends on the highly stereotypic distribution of cellular junctions and other membrane-associated protein complexes. In epithelial cells of the Drosophila embryo, three distinct domains subdivide the lateral plasma membrane. The most apical one comprises the subapical complex (SAC). It is followed by the zonula adherens (ZA) and, further basally, by the septate junction1. A core component of the SAC is the transmembrane protein Crumbs, the cytoplasmic domain of which recruits the PDZ-protein Discs Lost into the complex2,3. Cells lacking crumbs or the functionally related gene stardust fail to organize a continuous ZA and to maintain cell polarity4,5,6. Here we show that stardust provides an essential component of the SAC. Stardust proteins colocalize with Crumbs and bind to the carboxy-terminal amino acids of its cytoplasmic tail. We introduce two different Stardust proteins here: one MAGUK protein, characterized by a PDZ domain, an SH3 domain and a guanylate kinase domain; and a second isoform comprising only the guanylate kinase domain. The Stardust proteins represent versatile candidates as structural and possibly regulatory constituents of the SAC, a crucial element in the control of epithelial cell polarity.

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Figure 1: Cuticle preparations of embryos.
Figure 2: Molecular analysis of the sdt locus.
Figure 3: Proteins predicted from the sdt locus.
Figure 4: Phenotypic characteristics of sdt mutant embryos.
Figure 5: Relationship between sdt and crb expression.

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Acknowledgements

We thank N. Brown, B. Hovemann, M. Schäfer and C. M. Schuster for cDNA libraries, M. A. Bhat, D. Cavener and T. Uemura for antibodies, A. Ramrath for help with the yeast two-hybrid assay, and J. A. Campos-Ortega, K. Johnson, A. Müller and A. Wodarz for discussions and critical reading of the manuscript. The work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie.

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  1. Martina Schneider

    Present address: Department of Cell & Molecular Biology, Lund University, S-22184, Lund, Sweden

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Genetik, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Universitätsstraße 1, Düsseldorf, 40225, Germany

    André Bachmann, Martina Schneider, Eva Theilenberg, Ferdi Grawe & Elisabeth Knust

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  1. André Bachmann
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Correspondence to Elisabeth Knust.

Supplementary information

Figure 3.1

(JPG 175 KB)

Table 1. The MAGUK domain of Stardust binds to the cytoplasmic tail of Crumbs
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Table 2. Primer collection
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Bachmann, A., Schneider, M., Theilenberg, E. et al. Drosophila Stardust is a partner of Crumbs in the control of epithelial cell polarity. Nature 414, 638–643 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/414638a

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