XXXV Reunião Anual da SBBqResumoID:9015


Ion transporters of the late secretory vesicles in the sec 6-4 mutant of Sacharomyces cerevisiae


Oneida Terra Alves and Lev A. Okorokov



Laboratório de Fisiologia e Bioquimica de Microorganismos, Centro de Biociências e Biotecnologia, Universidade Estadual de Norte Fluminense,Campos dos Goytacazes-RJ, 28013-600, Brasil.


The growing body of evidence points to an important role of the H+ and Ca2+ gradients in the protein targeting and the intracellular transport of membrane vesicles, however, the molecular bases of the formation of those gradients and their participation in these key processes of the cell biology remain obscure. Our lab has previously shown that the main organelles of the yeast secretory pathway such as ER, Golgi and probably nuclear envelope beside the vacuoles possess the V H+-ATPases, Ca2+-ATPases and Ca2+/H+ exchangers which create the H+ and Ca2+ gradients across respective membranes and participate in the homeostasis of those ions. However, it is still open to question: i) whether those transporters are present in the late secretory vesicles (SV) carrying macromolecules to the plasma membrane (PM) and cell wall and ii) whether PM has its own Ca2+-ATPase and/or Ca2+/H+ exchanger involved in ion homeostasis. In this work we used sec6-4 mutant (S. cerevisiae EHY 227) isolated from wild type strain S. cerevisiae EHY 239 expecting that if PM has own Ca2+ transporters the accumulation of SV at non permissive temperature (37o) should result to the increase of the activity of the transporters in the region of light membranes. After the accumulation of SV at 37 oC total membranes were isolated from spheroplasts and fractionated in sucrose density gradient. As was expected the H+-translocase activity of P H+-ATPase has indeed moved from its typical location in high density membranes to the Golgi enriched lighter membranes. This finding is in a good agreement with the accumulation of the SV. Moreover, the highest peak of the Ca2+-ATPase activity and a high peak of the Ca2+/H+ exchanger were detected in the even more light membranes indicating that both Ca2+ transporters are good candidates to be PM enzymes. We also found that at least five distinct populations of SV were equipped with the V H+-ATPase, Ca2+-ATPase and Ca2+/H+ exchanger suggesting that all these ion transporters are important for the correct protein transport to the PM and the interaction of the SV with PM. Future experiments should be undertaken to unveil how these transporters and ion gradients participate in key processes in secretory pathway.

Supported by: CNPq and UENF.