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Updated: Oct 29, 2025

Site Specific Lysine Acetylation of Histones for Nucleosome Reconstitution using Genetic Code Expansion in Escherichia coli
Published on: December 26, 2020
Histatin-1 is an endogenous ligand of the sigma-2 receptor
Kyung-No Son1, Hyun Lee2, Dhara Shah1
1Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago, IL, USA.
Abstract:
The Sigma-2 receptor (S2R) (a.k.a TMEM97) is an important endoplasmic reticular protein involved in cancer, cholesterol processing, cell migration, and neurodegenerative diseases, including Niemann-Pick Type C. While several S2R pharmacologic agents have been discovered, its recent (2017) cloning has limited biological investigation, and no endogenous ligands of the S2R are known. Histatins are a family of endogenous antimicrobial peptides that have numerous important effects in multiple biological systems, including antifungal, antibacterial, cancer pathogenesis, immunomodulation, and wound healing. Histatin-1 (Hst1) has important roles in epithelial wound healing and cell migration, and is the primary wound healing agent in saliva. Little is understood about the downstream machinery that underpins the effects of histatins, and no mammalian receptor is known to date. In this study, we show, using biophysical methods and functional assays, that Hst1 is an endogenous ligand for S2R and that S2R is a mammalian receptor for Hst1.
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