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Glycosyl-Phosphatidylinositol Membrane Anchors

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Biological Signal Transduction

Part of the book series: NATO ASI Series ((ASIH,volume 52))

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Abstract

The consensus opinion that cell surface proteins could be anchored in the plasma membrane via covalent linkage to phospholipid emerged in 1985 through an amalgamation of data from several laboratories. Since the mid-1970s data from the groups of Ikezawa and Low showed that the treatment of cells or membranes with bacterial phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C (PI-PLC) results in the selective release of certain membrane proteins such as alkaline phosphatase, acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and 5′-nucleotidase (reviewed by Low, 1987). In an extensive study Low showed that PI-PLC released alkaline phosphatase could no longer re-bind to membranes and concluded that it was originally anchored through a tight, and probably covalent, linkage to phosphatidylinositol (PI) phospholipid (Low and Zilversmit, 1980). However in the absence of direct chemical evidence this proposal was largely ignored. The first chemical evidence for covalent linkage of phospholipid components to protein came from work on the rat Thy-1 antigen by Williams and colleagues (Campbell et al, 1981) who found stoichiometric amounts of ethanolamine and fatty acid attached to C-terminal proteolysis fragments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biochemistry, University of Dundee, Dundee, DD1 4HN, Scotland

    Michael A. J. Ferguson

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  1. Michael A. J. Ferguson
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Pharmacology, Southwestern Medical Center, University of Texas, 5323 Harry Hines Boulevard, Dallas, TX, 75235-9041, USA

    Elliott M. Ross

  2. Centre for Biomembranes and Lipid Enzymology, State University of Utrecht, Padualaan 8, 3508 TB, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Karel W. A. Wirtz

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© 1991 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Ferguson, M.A.J. (1991). Glycosyl-Phosphatidylinositol Membrane Anchors. In: Ross, E.M., Wirtz, K.W.A. (eds) Biological Signal Transduction. NATO ASI Series, vol 52. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-75136-3_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-75136-3_24

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-75138-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-75136-3

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