Highly Conserved Cysteines Are Involved in the Oligomerization of Occludin—Redox Dependency of the Second Extracellular Loop

Abstract

Our findings support the new concept that occludin acts as a hypoxiasensor and contributes toward regulating the TJ assembly redox dependently. This is of pathogenic relevance for tissue barrier injury with reducing conditions. The ECL2 disulfide might be a model for four TMD proteins in TJs with two conserved cysteines in an ECL.