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Caveolae are a type of invaginated membrane domain that has been shown to be involved in several disease states, including lipodystrophy, muscular dystrophies and cancer. Several of these diseases are caused by the lack of caveolae or caveolae-related signaling deficiencies in the tissues in which the caveolar domain are abundant such as lung, adipose, muscle and their related endothelial cells. Caveolae are formed through the assembly of the membrane inserted protein caveolin, cholesterol and the recently described family of cavin proteins, which together form the caveolae coat. The work in this thesis focuses on understanding the protein components and mechanisms that control the biogenesis and dynamics of caveolae.

We have found that the protein EHD2 is an important regulator and stabilizer of the caveolar domain at the cell membrane. EHD2 is a dimeric ATPase known to oligomerize into ring-like structures around lipid membranes to control their shape. We have characterized the domain interactions involved in the specific targeting and assembly of this protein at caveolae. We propose a stringent regulatory mechanism for the assembly of EHD2 involving ATP binding and switching of the EH domain position to release the N-terminus and facilitate oligomerization in the presence of membrane species. We show that loss of EHD2 in cells results in hyper- dynamic caveolae and that caveolae stability at the membrane can be restored by reintroducing EHD2 into these cells.

In a study of the protein cavin-3, which is known to be an integral component of the caveolar coat, we showed that this protein is targeted to caveolae via direct binding to the caveolar core protein caveolin1. Furthermore, we show that cavin-3 is enriched at deeply invaginated caveolae and regulate the duration time of caveolae at the cell surface.

In combination with a biochemical and cellbiological approach, the advanced fluorescence microscopy techniques, like Fluorescence Recovery After Photobleaching (FRAP), Total Internal Reflection microscopy (TIRF), combined with correlative Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) have allowed us to characterize distinct caveolae-associated proteins and their respective functions at caveolae.