Subcellular distribution of ras in human and murine fibroblasts.

Ras proteins play a significant role in signal transduction in response to growth factors and in cell transformation. To be active, ras has to be translocated to the cell membrane. Since subcellular distribution has been mainly studied in vector-transformed cells which highly express ras proteins, and it has been difficult to detect ras in cells expressing the protein at physiological levels, we studied subcellular distribution in human and murine fibroblasts. Here we show for the first time that a significant amount of ras is associated with the membrane skeleton and the cytoskeleton.