The inner workings of intracellular heterotypic and homotypic membrane fusion mechanisms

The glycolytic enzyme enolase of Staphylococcus aureus is a highly conserved enzyme which binds to human plasminogenthereby aiding the infection process. The cloning, over expression and purification of S. aureus enolase as well as the effectof various metals upon the catalytic activity and structural stability of the enzyme have been reported. The recombinantenzyme (rSaeno) has been purified to homogeneity in abundant amounts (60 mg/L of culture) and the kinetic parameters(Km = 0.23 ± 0.013 9 10-3 M; Vmax = 90.98 ± 0.00052 U/mg) and the optimum pH were calculated. This communication further reports that increasing concentrations of Na? ions inhibit the enzyme while increasing concentrations of K?ions were stimulatory. In case of divalent cations, it was found that Mg2? stimulates the activity of rSaeno while the rest ofthe divalent cations (Zn2?, Mn2?, Fe2?, Cu2?, Ni2? and Ca2?) lead to a dose-dependent loss in the activity with a total lossof activity in the presence of Hg2? and Cr2?. The circular dichroism data indicate that other than Hg2?, Ni2? and to acertain extent Cu2?, none of the other ions destabilized rSaeno. The inhibitory roles of fluorides, as well as neurotoxiccompounds upon the catalytic activity of rSaeno, have also been studied. Conformational changes in rSaeno (induced byions) were studied using partial trypsin digestion.

TORC2 and eisosomes are spatially interdependent, requiring optimal level of phosphatidylinositol 4, 5-bisphosphate for their integrity.

The elucidation of the organization and maintenance of the plasma membrane has been sought due to its numerous roles in cellular function. In the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a novel paradigm has begun to emerge in the understanding of the distribution of plasma membrane microdomains and how they are regulated. We aimed to investigate the dynamic interdependence between the protein complexes eisosome and TORC2, representing microdomains MCC and MCT, respectively. In this study, we reveal that the eisosome organizer Pil1 colocalizes with the MCT marker Avo2. Furthermore, we provide evidence that the formation of MCT is dependent on both eisosome integrity and adequate levels of the plasma membrane phosphoinositide PI(4,5)P2. Taken together, our findings indicate that TORC2, eisosomes, and PI(4,5)P2 exist in an interconnected relationship, which supports the emerging model of the plasma membrane.

Inactivation of Tor proteins affects the dynamics of endocytic proteins in early stage of endocytosis.

Tor2 is an activator of the Rom2/Rho1 pathway that regulates α-factor internalization. Since the recruitment of endocytic proteins such as actin-binding proteins and the amphiphysins precedes the internalization of α-factor, we hypothesized that loss of Tor function leads to an alteration in the dynamics of the endocytic proteins. We report here that endocytic proteins, Abp1 and Rvs167, are less recruited to endocytic sites not only in tor2 but also tor1 mutants. Furthermore, we found that the endocytic proteins Rvs167 and Sjl2 are completely mistargeted to the cytoplasm in tor1Δtor2ts double mutant cells. We also demonstrate here that the efficiency of endocytic internalization or scission in all tor mutants was drastically decreased. In agreement with the Sjl2 mislocalization, we found that in tor1Δtor2ts double mutant cells, as well as other tor mutant cells, the overall PIP2 level was dramatically increased. Finally, the cell wall chitin content in tor2ts and tor1Δtor2ts mutant cells was also significantly increased. Taken together, both functional Tor proteins, Tor1 and Tor2, are essentially required for proper endocytic protein dynamics at the early stage of endocytosis.

Vps1 in the late endosome-to-vacuole traffic.

Vacuolar protein sorting 1 (Vps1), the yeast homolog to human dynamin, is a GTP hydrolyzing protein, which plays an important role in protein sorting and targeting between the Golgi and late endosomal compartments. In this study, we assessed the functional significance of Vps1 in the membrane traffic towards the vacuole. We show here that vps1Δ cells accumulated FM4-64 to a greater extent than wild-type (WT) cells, suggesting slower endocytic degradation traffic toward the vacuole. In addition, we observed that two endosome-to-vacuole traffic markers, DsRed-FYVE and Ste2-GFP, were highly accumulated in Vps1-deficient cells, further supporting Vps1’s implication in efficient trafficking of endocytosed materials to the vacuole. Noteworthy, a simultaneous imaging analysis in conjunction with FM4-64 pulse-chase experiment further revealed that Vps1 plays a role in late endosome to the vacuole transport. Consistently, our subcellular localization analysis showed that Vps1 is present at the late endosome. The hyperaccumulation of endosomal intermediates in the vps1 mutant cells appears to be caused by the disruption of integrity of HOPS tethering complexes, manifested by mislocalization of Vps39 to the cytoplasm. Finally, we postulate that Vps1 functions together with the Endosomal Sorting Complex Required for Transport (ESCRT) complex at the late endosomal compartments, based on the observation that the double mutants, in which VPS1 along with singular ESCRT I, II and III genes have been disrupted, exhibited synthetic lethality. Together, we propose that Vps1 is required for correct and efficient trafficking from the late endosomal compartments to the vacuole.

Requirements of Slm proteins for proper eisosome organization, endocytic trafficking and recycling in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Eisosomes are large immobile assemblies at the cortex of a cell under the membrane compartment of Can1 (MCC) in yeast. Slm1 has recently been identified as an MCC component that acts downstream of Mss4 in a pathway that regulates actin cytoskeleton organization in response to stress. In this study, we showed that inactivation of Slm proteins disrupts proper localization of the primary eisosome marker Pil1, providing evidence that Slm proteins play a role in eisosome organization. Furthermore, we found that slmts mutant cells exhibit actin defects in both the ability to polarize cortical F-actin and the formation of cytoplasmic actin cables even at the permissive temperature (30°C). We further demonstrated that the actin defect accounts for the slow traffic of FM4-64-labelled endosome in the cytoplasm, supporting the notion that intact actin is essential for endosome trafficking. However, our real-time microscopic analysis of Abp1-RFP revealed that the actin defect in slmts cells was not accompanied by a noticeable defect in actin patch internalization during receptor-mediated endocytosis. In addition, we found that slmts cells displayed impaired membrane recycling and that recycling occurred in an actin-independent manner. Our data provide evidence for the requirement of Slm proteins in eisosome organization and endosome trafficking and recycling.