Effect of St. John’s wort extract Ze 117 on the lateral mobility of β1-adrenergic receptors in C6 cells

Abstract

Depression has been associated with altered signal transduction of serotonergic, dopaminergic and adrenergic neurotransmitter systems in the brain. Signaling relies on receptor-ligand interactions and subsequent regulatory processes, but also on lateral receptor mobility. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the St. John’s wort extract Ze 117 on the lateral mobility of SNAP-tagged β1-adrenergic receptors (β1AR) in the plasma membrane of C6 cells under both, non-stimulating and isoprenaline-stimulating conditions. Single particle tracking (SPT) was used, whereby the registered trajectories were evaluated by variational Bayesian treatment of a hidden Markov model (vbSPT) and packing coefficient (Pc) analysis with respect to diffusion coefficients, receptor state occupancies and confinement. Three different diffusion states were identified, differing in their diffusion coefficients. Treatment with Ze 117 [25 µg/ml] decreased the mobility of the β1AR, which was manifested by a relative increase in the slow-diffusing state S1 (0.21–0.30) compared to control and by an increase in receptor confinement (79.4–68.1 nm). After isoprenaline stimulation of control cells, the slow-diffusing state was more pronounced, whereas confinement was not affected. In summary, SPT has been shown to be a powerful method to analyze lateral receptor mobility. Furthermore, the present study identified a correlation between Ze 117 treatment and β1AR mobility.

Keywords

• Single particle tracking
• Hypericum perforatum
• St. John’s wort
• β1-adrenergic receptor
• Lateral mobility
• Depression