Cornea High Throughput Assay Identifies Glafenine as a Corrector for the Folding Defect in Corneal Dystrophy–Causing Mutants of SLC4A11 Anthony M. Chiu,1 Jake J. Mandziuk,1,2 Sampath K. Loganathan,1,2 Kumari Alka,1,2 and Joseph R. Casey1,2 1Department of Physiology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada 2Department of Biochemistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Correspondence: Joseph R. Casey, PURPOSE. Protein misfolding, causing retention of nascent protein in the endoplasmic Department of Biochemistry, Uni- reticulum (ER), is the most common molecular phenotype for disease alleles of membrane versity of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, proteins. Strategies are needed to identify therapeutics able to correct such folding/trafficking Canada T6G 2H7; defects. Mutations of SLC4A11, a plasma membrane transport protein of the human corneal
[email protected]. endothelial cell layer, cause cases of congenital hereditary endothelial dystrophy, Harboyan Submitted: July 27, 2015 syndrome, and Fuchs’ endothelial corneal dystrophy. Most SLC4A11 mutations induce Accepted: October 30, 2015 SLC4A11 misfolding and retention in the ER. Citation: Chiu AM, Mandziuk JJ, Loga- METHODS. An assay amenable to high-throughput screening was developed to quantify nathan SK, Alka K, Casey JR. High SLC4A11 at the plasma membrane, enabling a search for potential traffic-correcting small throughput assay identifies glafenine as a corrector for the folding defect in molecules. The assay was validated by comparing cell surface abundance of SLC4A11 mutants corneal dystrophy–causing mutants of measured in the assay to observations from confocal immunofluorescence and values from SLC4A11. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. cell surface biotinylation. Functionality of mutant proteins was assessed, using a confocal 2015;56:7739–7753.