Oxidative stress induced by menadione (vitamin K3) results in non-canonical AQP2 membrane traffcking in LLC-AQP2 cells
Authors: Bouley Richard , Babicz Richard , Sutthasupha Prempree , Shuster Isra , Cheung Pui , Brown Dennis 
Published: May 2024

Oxidative stress affects a wide variety of cellular processes including morphology, protein traffcking, and cell death. Several studies show that reactive oxygen species (ROS) are able to pass through some water channels, and that ROS may modulate aquaporin expression and traffcking. However, a relationship between ROS status and the traffcking of aquaporin-2 (AQP2) has yet to be well-defined. To address this question, we first treated LLC-PK1 cells expressing cmyc-tagged AQP2 (LLC-AQP2 cells) for 30 min with menadione (MK3, 20 μM), an agent widely used to generate ROS in cell culture. Similar to vasopressin (VP), MK3 induced significant AQP2 accumulation in the plasma membrane of these cells. Using LLC-AQP2 cells expressing secreted soluble green fluorescent protein (ss-GFP), we revealed significantly increased vesicle exocytosis upon treatment with MK3. Surprisingly, MK3 did not affect rhodamine-labeled dextran endocytosis, suggesting that the MK3 effect is mainly due an increase in AQP2 exocytosis into the plasma membrane. Next, we studied the role of AQP2 c-terminal serine 256 phosphorylation in this process. MK3 treatment resulted in significant plasma membrane accumulation of the non-phosphorylatable AQP2 S256A mutant, whereas VP had no effect, as previously reported. To understand the contribution of protein kinase A (PKA) to MK3-mediated AQP2 traffcking, we used CRISPR-generated LLC-AQP2,koPKA cells that lack PKA isoforms. Interestingly, an increase in AQP2 membrane accumulation was still observed, suggesting that the MK3 effect is PKA-independent. By western blotting with anti-phospho-AQP2 antibodies, we found that MK3 did not affect phosphorylation of the critical S256 residue, but in contrast to VP, MK3 actually increased the phosphorylation level of S261 instead of reducing it. Finally, we showed that AQP2 accumulation in both LLC-AQP2 and LLC-AQP2 S256A cells was inhibited in the presence of glutathione (5 mM), an anti-oxidant or reducing agent. Interestingly, western blot analysis showed that glutathione abolished the MK3-induced increase of S261 AQP2 phosphorylation. In summary, our study shows that menadione (MK3) induces AQP2 membrane accumulation in LLC-AQP2 cells, suggesting a role of ROS in this process. This effect is largely due a change in AQP2 vesicle exocytosis. It does not require phosphorylation of the c-terminal S256 residue of AQP2, but MK3 does cause increased S261 phosphorylation. While incompletely understood at present, these data reveal that alternative, probably ROS-related, regulatory mechanisms can be involved in AQP2 traffcking and recycling. This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant DK096586 (D. Brown). P. W. Cheung was supported was supported by NIH K-award DK115901. Richard Babicz is the recipient of the Ben J Lipps Research Fellowship (American Society of Nephrology). Additional support for the Program in Membrane Biology Microscopy Core came from the Boston Area Diabetes and Endocrinology Research Center (DK057521) and the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for the Study of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (DK043351). This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.