Expression of both N- and C-terminal GFP tagged huCD36 and their discrepancy in OxLDL and pRBC binding on CHO cells

CD36, an 88 kDa membrane glycoprotein, is found in several cell types and it has been characterized to have two hydrophobic domains at their N- and C-termini which are essential for protein folding and targeting. In this study, we first tagged the green fluorescent protein (GFP) to both the N- and C-termini of huCD36 and investigated their cellular expression and influences on lipoprotein and plasmodium falciparium parasitized erythrocytes (pRBC) binding. Our work revealed that huCD36 proteins are expressed normally irrespective of the GFP tag presence at either the N- or C-termini. However, the two recombinant proteins showed discrepancy in uptake and surface-binding of OxLDL but they did not affect pRBC binding. These results suggested that the interaction between oxLDL and CD36 could be blocked using recombinant proteins and this may be useful in potential control of the trafficking of modified lipoproteins into monocytes leading to atherogenesis.