Background: Germinal Vesicle (GV) stage mouse oocytes in first meiotic prophase exhibit highly active HCO(3)(-)/Cl(-) exchange--a class of transport nearly ubiquitously involved in regulation of intracellular pH and cell volume. During meiosis, however, oocyte HCO(3)(-)/Cl(-) exchange becomes inactivated during first metaphase (MI), remains inactive in second metaphase (MII), and is reactivated only after egg activation. Previous work using pharmacological manipulations had indicated that activity of the MEK/MAPK signaling pathway was negatively correlated with HCO(3)(-)/Cl(-) exchange activity during meiosis. However, the mechanism by which the exchanger is inactivated during meiotic progression had not been determined, nor had the role of MEK/MAPK been directly established.
Methodology/principal findings: Expression of a constitutively active form of MEK (MAP kinase kinase), which prevented the normal downregulation of MAPK after egg activation, also prevented reactivation of HCO(3)(-)/Cl(-) exchange. Conversely, suppression of endogenous MAPK activity with dominant negative MEK activated the normally quiescent HCO(3)(-)/Cl(-) exchange in mature MII eggs. A GFP-tagged form of the HCO(3)(-)/Cl(-) exchanger isoform Ae2 (Slc4a2) was strongly expressed at the GV oocyte plasma membrane, but membrane localization decreased markedly during meiotic progression. A similar pattern for endogenous Ae2 was confirmed by immunocytochemistry. The loss of membrane-localized Ae2 appeared selective, since membrane localization of a GFP-tagged human dopamine D1 receptor did not change during meiotic maturation.
Conclusions: Direct manipulation of MAPK activity indicated that GFP-tagged Ae2 localization depended upon MAPK activity. Inactivation of HCO(3)(-)/Cl(-) exchange during the meiotic cell cycle may therefore reflect the loss of Ae2 from the oocyte plasma membrane, downstream of MEK/MAPK signaling. This identifies a novel role for MEK/MAPK-mediated cytostatic factor (CSF) activity during meiosis in membrane protein trafficking in mouse oocytes, and shows for the first time that selective retrieval of membrane proteins is a feature of meiosis in mammalian oocytes.