A Novel Phospholipase C δ4 (PLCδ4) Splice Variant as a Negative Regulator of PLC

Abstract It has been reported that there are two alternatively spliced variants of phospholipase C-δ4 (PLCδ4), termed ALT I and II, that contain an additional 32 and 14 amino acids in their respective sequences in the linker region between the catalytic X and Y domains (Lee, S. B., and Rhee, S. G. (1996)J. Biol. Chem. 271, 25–31). We report here the isolation and characterization of a novel alternative splicing isoform of PLCδ4, termed ALT III, as a negative regulator of PLC. In ALT III, alternative splicing occurred in the catalytic X domain,i.e. 63 amino acids (residues 424–486) containing the C-terminal of the X domain and linker region were substituted for 32 amino acids corresponding to the insert sequence of ALT I. Although the expression level of ALT III was found to be much lower in most tissues and cells compared with that of PLCδ4, it was significantly higher in some neural cells, such as NIE-115 cells and p19 cells differentiated to neural cells by retinoic acid. Interestingly, recombinant ALT III protein did not retain enzymatic activity, and the activity of PLCδ4 overexpressed in COS7 cells was markedly decreased by the co-expression of ALT III but not by ALT I or II. Moreover, N-terminal pleckstrin homology domain (PH domain) of ALT III alone could inhibit the increase of inositol-1,4,5-trisphosphate levels in PLCδ4-overexpressing NIH3T3 cells, whereas a PH domain deletion mutant could not, indicating that the PH domain is necessary and sufficient for its inhibitory effect. The ALT III PH domain specifically bound to phosphatidylinositol (PtdIns)-4,5-P2 and PtdIns-3,4,5-P3 but not PtdIns, PtdIns-4-P, or inositol phosphates, and the mutant R36G, which retained only weak affinity for PtdIns-4,5-P2, could not inhibit the activity of PLCδ4. These results indicate that PtdIns-4,5-P2 binding to PH domain is essential for the inhibitory effect of ALT III. ALT III also inhibited PLCδ1 activity and partially suppressed PLCγ1 activity, but not PLCβ1 in vitro; it did inhibit all types of isozymes tested in vivo. Taken together, our results indicate that ALT III is a negative regulator of PLC that is most effective against the PLC δ-type isozymes, and its PH domain is essential for its function.