Occludin plays a role in the formation, disassembly and stability of the Tight Junction proteins and is involved in the regulation of the “leak pathway” or paracellular flux of macromolecules across the Intestinal Epithelial Tight Junction Barrier. Occludin OCEL-domain interactions are required for that (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10).
Among these TJ proteins, occludin always combines with the zonula occludens members Zonula Occludens Protein-1 (ZO-1) / Zonula Occludens Protein-2 (ZO-2) or Zonula Occludens Protein-1 (ZO-1) / Zonula Occludens Protein-3 (ZO-3) in the cell membrane (9).
Occludin depletion leads to a preferential increase in paracellular flux of macromolecules (3, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
References
(1) Mitic et al. 2000 Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol 279(2): G250-4
(2) Van Itallie & Anderson 2004 Physiol (Bethesda) 19: 331-8
(3) Al-Sadi et al. 2011 Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol 300(6): G1054-64
(4) Buschmann et al. 2013 Mol Biol Cell 24(19): 3056-68
(5) Van Itallie & Anderson 2014 Semin Cell Dev Biol 36: 157-65
(6) König et al. 2016 Clin Transl Gastroenterol 7(10): e196
(7) Almansour et al. 2018 J Control Release 288: 111-25
(8) Ma et al. 2018a In: Physiology of the Gastrointestinal Tract: Sixth Edition. London, United Kingdom, San Diego, CA, United States, Cambridge, MA, United States, Kidlington, United Kingdom: Elsevier Inc 587-639. 1-2.
(9) Wittchen et al. 1999 J Biol Chem 274: 35179-35185
(10) Tsukita 2000 Cornea 19: S142-S145
(11) Nusrat et al. 2000 Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol 279(5): G851-7
(12) Clayburgh et al. 2004a Lab Invest 84(3): 282-91
(13) Shen & Turner 2006 Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physio 290(4):G577–82
(14) Shen et al. 2011 Annu Rev Physiol 73: 283-309
(16) France & Turner 2017 J Cell Sci 130(2): 307-14
see also:
Claudins (claudin family proteins)
Tight-Junction Molecules / Tight Junction Proteins
