Prothymosin alpha-receptor associates with lipid rafts in PHA-stimulated lymphocytes

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Abstract
Lipid rafts are specialized plasma membrane microdomains in which glycosphingolipids and cholesterol are major structural components. Their relative insolubility to nonionic detergents is the most widely used method to purify these structures. Several signalling proteins are associated with these microdomains in T lymphocytes, including receptors for growth factors and cytokines. ProTα is a highly conserved and widely distributed protein whose physiological functions remain elusive. In previous works we identified, by means of affinity cross-linking, affinity chromatography and fluorescence microscopy, a set of binding proteins for ProTα in human lymphoblasts. Now, this work goes deeply in that ProTα receptor description revealing, by different experimental approaches, its presence in lipid rafts. Moreover, our results fit a model in which a tyrosine phosphorylation signalling cascade confined to rafts is initiated upon ProTα receptor recognition, which represents an important and promising finding in the research for elucidating the molecular mechanisms underlying the immunomodulatory functions of ProTα.