CREB regulated transcription coactivator 1 (CRTC1) interacts with microtubules

Abstract

CRTCs are found to be coactivators of Creb1 that constitutively regulate cell energy balance and longevity by regulating glucose metabolism. To accomplish this, dephosphorylated CRTCs translocate to nuclear to enhance the activation of Creb1 to activate gluconeogenesis. Recently, CRTC1 was reported to be located in hippocampal neuron synapses and dendrites with long distance transport along neurites. In this report, we found that CRTC1 was distributed mostly in the cytosol along microtubules and was also able to target membrane ruffles, which suggests CRTC1 may relay signals far from cell periphery region and possibly directly from plasma membrane to cell nuclei. However, its mechanism is still unknown. Our result shows that CRTC1 binds to polymerized tubulins, which implies that signal transduction of CRTC1 complex may be mediated via microtubules. This finding helps to further understand the detailed role of CRTC1 in cell cytosol.