Soluble corticotropin-releasing hormone receptor 2alpha splice variant is efficiently translated but not trafficked for secretion.

CRH directs the physiological and behavioral responses to stress. Its activity is mediated by CRH receptors (CRH-R) 1 and 2 and modulated by the CRH-binding protein. Aberrant regulation of this system has been associated with anxiety disorders and major depression, demonstrating the importance of understanding the regulation of CRH activity. An mRNA splice variant of CRH-R2alpha (sCRH-R2alpha) was recently identified that encodes the receptor's ligand-binding extracellular domain but terminates before the transmembrane domains. It was therefore predicted to serve as a secreted decoy receptor, mimicking the ability of CRH-binding protein to sequester free CRH. Although the splice variant contains a premature termination codon, predicting its degradation by nonsense-mediated RNA decay, cycloheximide experiments and polysome profiles demonstrated that sCRH-R2alpha mRNA escaped this regulation and was efficiently translated. However, the resulting protein was unable to serve as a decoy receptor because it failed to traffic for secretion because of an ineffective signal peptide and was ultimately subjected to proteosomal degradation. Several other truncated splice variants of G protein-coupled transmembrane receptors regulate the amount of full-length receptor expression through dimerization and misrouting; however, receptor binding assays and immunofluorescence of cells cotransfected with sCRH-R2alpha and CRH-R2alpha or CRH-R1 indicated that sCRH-R2alpha protein does not alter trafficking or binding of full-length CRH-R. Although sCRH-R2alpha protein does not appear to function as an intracellular or extracellular decoy receptor, the regulated unproductive splicing of CRH-R2alpha pre-mRNA to sCRH-R2alpha may selectively alter the cellular levels of full-length CRH-R2alpha mRNA and hence functional CRH-R2alpha receptor levels.