Nell-1-ΔE, a novel transcript of Nell-1, inhibits cell migration by interacting with enolase-1

NELL-1 is a secreted protein that was originally found to be upregulated in pathologically fusing and fused sutures in non-syndromic unilateral coronal synostosis patients. Apart from the ability of NELL-1 to promote osteogenesis in long and craniofacial bones, NELL-1 reportedly inhibits the formation of several benign and malignant tumors. We previously identified a novel transcript of Nell-1 that lacked a calcium-binding epidermal growth factor (EGF)-like domain compared with full-length Nell-1; this new transcript was named Nell-1-ΔE. Three obvious structural differences between these two isoforms were revealed by homology modeling. Furthermore, the recombinant Nell-1-ΔE protein, but not the full-length Nell-1 protein, inhibited cell migration in vitro. However, full-length Nell-1 and Nell-1-ΔE proteins were present in similar subcellular locations and displayed similar expression patterns in both the intracellular and extracellular spaces. The results from the co-immunoprecipitation and liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry analyses using two cell lines demonstrated that Nell-1-ΔE but not full-length Nell-1 interacted with enolase-1 in the extracellular spaces of both cell lines. The results of wound healing assays using ENO-1-overexpressing cells treated with full-length Nell-1/Nell-1-ΔE suggested that Nell-1-ΔE inhibited cell migration by interacting with ENO-1. Our study indicated that the novel transcript Nell-1-ΔE, but not full-length Nell-1, might be a candidate tumor suppressor factor for basic research and clinical practice.