analysis-endocytic-uptake-retrograde-transport-to-trans-golgi-network

Analysis of Endocytic Uptake and Retrograde Transport to the Trans-Golgi Network Using Functionalized Nanobodies in Cultured Cells

Transport of proteins and membranes from the cell surface to the Golgi and beyond is essential for homeostasis, organelle identity and physiology. To ...

University of Basel

The Sec61 translocon catalyzes translocation of proteins into the endoplasmic reticulum and the lateral integration of transmembrane segments into the lipid bilayer. Integration is mediated by the hydrophobicity of a polypeptide segment consistent with thermodynamic equilibration between the translocon and the lipid membrane. Integration efficiency of a generic series of increasingly hydrophobic sequences (H-segments) was found to diverge significantly in different reporter constructs as a function of the ∼100 residues that are C-terminal to the H-segments. The hydrophobicity threshold of integration was considerably lowered through insertion of generic ∼20-residue peptides either made of flexible glycine-serine repeats, containing multiple negative charges, or consisting of an oligoproline stretch. A highly flexible, 100-residue glycine-serine stretch maximally enhanced this effect. The apparent free energy of integration was found to be changed by more than 3 kcal/mol with the downstream sequences tested. The C-terminal sequences could also be shown to affect integration of natural mildly hydrophobic sequences. The results suggest that the conformation of the nascent polypeptide in the protected cavity between the ribosome and translocon considerably influences the release of the H-segment into the bilayer.

Integration of transmembrane domains is regulated by their downstream sequences.

Aggregation of peptide hormone precursors in the trans-Golgi network is an essential process in the biogenesis of secretory granules in endocrine cells. It has recently been proposed that this aggregation corresponds to the formation of functional amyloids. Our previous finding that dominant mutations in provasopressin, which cause cell degeneration and diabetes insipidus, prevent native folding and produce fibrillar aggregates in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) might thus reflect mislocalized amyloid formation by sequences that evolved to mediate granule sorting.

Amyloid-like aggregation of provasopressin in diabetes insipidus and secretory granule sorting.

Retrograde transport of membranes and proteins from the cell surface to the Golgi and beyond is essential to maintain homeostasis, compartment identity, and physiological functions. To study retrograde traffic biochemically, by live-cell imaging or by electron microscopy, we engineered functionalized anti-GFP nanobodies (camelid VHH antibody domains) to be bacterially expressed and purified. Tyrosine sulfation consensus sequences were fused to the nanobody for biochemical detection of -Golgi arrival, fluorophores for fluorescence microscopy and live imaging, and APEX2 (ascorbate peroxidase 2) for electron microscopy and compartment ablation. These functionalized nanobodies are specifically captured by GFP-modified reporter proteins at the cell surface and transported piggyback to the reporters' homing compartments. As an application of this tool, we have used it to determine the contribution of adaptor protein-1/clathrin in retrograde transport kinetics of the mannose-6-phosphate receptors from endosomes back to the -Golgi network. Our experiments establish functionalized nanobodies as a powerful tool to demonstrate and quantify retrograde transport pathways.

Article	Year
Integration of transmembrane domains is regulated by their downstream sequences. Journal of cell science\| PubMed ID: 27909247	2017
Amyloid-like aggregation of provasopressin in diabetes insipidus and secretory granule sorting. BMC biology\| PubMed ID: 28122547	2017
A versatile nanobody-based toolkit to analyze retrograde transport from the cell surface. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America\| PubMed ID: 29915061	2018

Martin Spiess

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