Fig. 3

Sequential cleavages of furin, α- and γ-secretase. a Western blot of control (Vector), ADAM10 overexpressing, and ADAM17 overexpressing HEK cells. Exposure 1 was used to analyze CTFf in the ADAM17 overexpressing cells and C96 in the ADAM10 overexpressing cells; exposure 2 was used for assessing C79 and C96 in the ADAM17 overexpressing cells. TAPI-1 (10 μM) is an ADAM17-specific inhibitor; FI-2 (20 μM) stands for Furin inhibitor-2. b Quantification of the dynamic changes of mature CNTNAP2 and CTF levels in the ADAM10/ADAM17 transfected cells upon inhibitor treatments in (a). n = 3 independent experiments, ordinary one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s multiple comparisons test, *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001. P values stand for comparisons with the Control group unless noted by the brackets. c, d Dynamic changes of CTFs in the furin transfected cells, showing the furin-ADAM17 cleavages. n = 3 independent experiments, ordinary one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s multiple comparisons test, *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001. P values stand for comparisons with the Control group unless noted by the brackets. e Western Blot of control (Vector), ADAM10 overexpressing, and ADAM17 overexpressing HEK cells. GSI is γ-secretase inhibitor L-685,458 (20 nM). f Quantification of the sequential cleavage by α- and γ-secretase in (e). n = 3 independent experiments, unpaired t-test, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01. g Schematic of CNTNAP2 processing. Mature CNTNAP2 undergoes sequential cleavages by furin and α-, γ-secretase. Furin cleaves CNTNAP2 to generate CTFf, which is further processed by α-secretase. α-secretase ADAM10 and ADAM17 share the same cutting sites but have different site preferences. ADAM10 primarily cleaves at I79 to produce the predominant C79, and ADAM17 preferably cleaves at L96 to produce the weaker C96. C96 is subsequently processed by α-secretase into C79. γ-secretase further cleaves C79 at L53 within the transmembrane domain to generate CICD. All the results are expressed as mean ± SEM