1. Tail-anchored Protein Insertion in Mammals
- Author
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Arianna Crespi, Sara Francesca Colombo, Nica Borgese, Richard F. Bram, Annalisa Maroli, Adriana Vitiello, Silvia Cardani, Roberta Benfante, and Paolo Soffientini
- Subjects
0301 basic medicine ,Caml ,Protein subunit ,Endoplasmic reticulum ,Cell Biology ,Biology ,medicine.disease_cause ,Biochemistry ,Heterotetramer ,Transmembrane protein ,03 medical and health sciences ,030104 developmental biology ,0302 clinical medicine ,Membrane protein ,Membrane biogenesis ,Protein targeting ,medicine ,Molecular Biology ,computer ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,computer.programming_language - Abstract
The GET (guided entry of tail-anchored proteins)/TRC (transmembrane recognition complex) pathway for tail-anchored protein targeting to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) has been characterized in detail in yeast and is thought to function similarly in mammals, where the orthologue of the central ATPase, Get3, is known as TRC40 or Asna1. Get3/TRC40 function requires an ER receptor, which in yeast consists of the Get1/Get2 heterotetramer and in mammals of the WRB protein (tryptophan-rich basic protein), homologous to yeast Get1, in combination with CAML (calcium-modulating cyclophilin ligand), which is not homologous to Get2. To better characterize the mammalian receptor, we investigated the role of endogenous WRB and CAML in tail-anchored protein insertion as well as their association, concentration, and stoichiometry in rat liver microsomes and cultured cells. Functional proteoliposomes, reconstituted from a microsomal detergent extract, lost their activity when made with an extract depleted of TRC40-associated proteins or of CAML itself, whereas in vitro synthesized CAML and WRB together were sufficient to confer insertion competence to liposomes. CAML was found to be in ∼5-fold excess over WRB, and alteration of this ratio did not inhibit insertion. Depletion of each subunit affected the levels of the other one; in the case of CAML silencing, this effect was attributable to destabilization of the WRB transcript and not of WRB protein itself. These results reveal unanticipated complexity in the mutual regulation of the TRC40 receptor subunits and raise the question as to the role of the excess CAML in the mammalian ER.
- Published
- 2016
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