Biochemistry & Analytical Biochemistry

Abstract

ALK5, A Novel Binding Partner of Lumican in Corneal Wound Healing

Yujin Zhang and Chia-yang Liu

Recently, Yamanaka et al. published a paper in PLOSone, which revealed that recombinant mouse lumican (Lum) protein purified from E. coli was capable of interacting with transforming growth factor beta receptor 1 (TGFβR1, ALK5) and further demonstrated that the interaction between these two is critical for the wound healing activity of Lum in vitro and in vivo. This paper was important because it addressed a central issue about Lum; namely its cell surface receptor mediating the multiple biological functions as a matrikine in physiological and pathophysiological conditions. The results convincingly demonstrate that ALK5 is the Lum receptor, which has remained elusive for the past two decades since the suggestion of a putative Lum receptor by Funderburgh et al., in 1997.