Dok-7 regulates neuromuscular synapse formation by recruiting Crk and Crk-L

PT Hallock, CF Xu, TJ Park, TA Neubert… - Genes & …, 2010 - genesdev.cshlp.org
PT Hallock, CF Xu, TJ Park, TA Neubert, T Curran, SJ Burden
Genes & development, 2010genesdev.cshlp.org
Agrin, released by motor neurons, promotes neuromuscular synapse formation by
stimulating MuSK, a receptor tyrosine kinase expressed in skeletal muscle. Phosphorylated
MuSK recruits docking protein-7 (Dok-7), an adaptor protein that is expressed selectively in
muscle. In the absence of Dok-7, neuromuscular synapses fail to form, and mutations that
impair Dok-7 are a major cause of congenital myasthenia in humans. How Dok-7 stimulates
synaptic differentiation is poorly understood. Once recruited to MuSK, Dok-7 directly …
Agrin, released by motor neurons, promotes neuromuscular synapse formation by stimulating MuSK, a receptor tyrosine kinase expressed in skeletal muscle. Phosphorylated MuSK recruits docking protein-7 (Dok-7), an adaptor protein that is expressed selectively in muscle. In the absence of Dok-7, neuromuscular synapses fail to form, and mutations that impair Dok-7 are a major cause of congenital myasthenia in humans. How Dok-7 stimulates synaptic differentiation is poorly understood. Once recruited to MuSK, Dok-7 directly stimulates MuSK kinase activity. This unusual activity of an adapter protein is mediated by the N-terminal region of Dok-7, whereas most mutations that cause congenital myasthenia truncate the C-terminal domain. Here, we demonstrate that Dok-7 also functions downstream from MuSK, and we identify the proteins that are recruited to the C-terminal domain of Dok-7. We show that Agrin stimulates phosphorylation of two tyrosine residues in the C-terminal domain of Dok-7, which leads to recruitment of two adapter proteins: Crk and Crk-L. Furthermore, we show that selective inactivation of Crk and Crk-L in skeletal muscle leads to severe defects in neuromuscular synapses in vivo, revealing a critical role for Crk and Crk-L downstream from Dok-7 in presynaptic and postsynaptic differentiation.
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