Abstract 599: Lighting Up P2Y12 Oligomers: Insights into the Role of Oligomerization in P2Y12 Function

Introduction: Little is known about the role of P2Y12 oligomerization in receptor function and whether P2Y12 receptor mutations associated with human bleeding disorders may be explained by alterations in oligomerization. Objectives: 1) To determine whether P2Y12 homo- and hetero-oligomers are constitutive or dynamically regulated. 2) To explore whether P2Y12 mutants R256Q and R265W (previously detected in patients with abnormal bleeding, but with unaltered ADP binding) have different oligomerization affinities or kinetics and determine whether differences in P2Y12 oligomerization explain the functional defects. Methods: We employed a Venus-based Bimolecular Fluorescence Complementation (BiFC) approach in HEK293T cells transiently co-expressing P2Y12 or its mutant forms (R256Q or R265W) tagged with either the N-terminal (P2Y12-VN) or C terminal fragment (P2Y12-VC) of Venus, to characterize their homomeric interactions, in live cells using confocal microscopy and quantitative flow cytometry assays. Results:...