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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Jun 22.
Published in final edited form as: J Membr Biol. 2012 Jun 22;245(5-6):221–230. doi: 10.1007/s00232-012-9443-5

Fig. 6.

Fig. 6

Mutating the cytoplasmic membrane interface region of the Cx43 TM3 from LR to MG destabilizes ER-retained monomers. a Top Diagram showing the plasma membrane topology of a connexin monomer (with an HKKSL tag appended to its C terminus). Bottom Sequence alignment of the TM3 domains of Cx37 and Cx43 shows the cytoplasmic interface motif surrounded by a box. b Graph shows the percentage of ER oligomerization calculated from profiles of sucrose gradient fractionation of HeLa cells transfected with Cx43-HKKSL, Cx43R153G-HKKSL, Cx43L152MR153G-HKKSL or Cx37-HKKSL (average ± SE, n = 3). The sucrose gradient profiles of Cx43L152-MR153G-HKKSL and Cx37-HKKSL were comparable and contained significantly more oligomerized connexins than Cx43-HKKSL (*p < 0.01). c–e Representative sucrose gradient profiles are shown for HeLa cells transfected with Cx43-HKKSL (c), Cx43R153G-HKKSL (d) or Cx43L152MR153G-HKKSL (e) dashed lines indicate the upper limit of the monomer peak in the gradient profiles (A representative sucrose gradient fractionation profile for Cx37-HKKSL is shown in Fig. 3)