GO-PROMTO Illuminates Protein Membrane Topologies of Glycan Biosynthetic Enzymes in the Golgi Apparatus of Living Tissues

Casper Søgaard (1) , Anne Stenbaek (1) , Sophie Bernard (2) , Masood Hadi (3) , Azeddine Driouich (2) , Henrik Vibe Scheller (4) , Yumiko Sakuragi (1)

1 UCPH - University of Copenhagen = Københavns Universitet
2 Glyco-MEV - Laboratoire de Glycobiologie et Matrice Extracellulaire Végétale
3 Joint BioEnergy Institute [Emeryville]
4 LBNL - Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory [Berkeley]

The Golgi apparatus is the main site of glycan biosynthesis in eukaryotes. Better understanding of the membrane topology of the proteins and enzymes involved can impart new mechanistic insights into these processes. Publically available bioinformatic tools provide highly variable predictions of membrane topologies for given proteins. Therefore we devised a non-invasive experimental method by which the membrane topologies of Golgi-resident proteins can be determined in the Golgi apparatus in living tissues. A Golgi marker was used to construct a series of reporters based on the principle of bimolecular fluorescence complementation. The reporters and proteins of interest were recombinantly fused to split halves of yellow fluorescent protein (YFP) and transiently co-expressed with the reporters in the Nicotiana benthamiana leaf tissue. Output signals were binary, showing either the presence or absence of fluorescence with signal morphologies characteristic of the Golgi apparatus and endoplasmic reticulum (ER). The method allows prompt and robust determinations of membrane topologies of Golgi-resident proteins and is termed GO-PROMTO (for GOlgi PROtein Membrane TOpology). We applied GO-PROMTO to examine the topologies of proteins involved in the biosynthesis of plant cell wall polysaccharides including xyloglucan and arabinan. The results suggest the existence of novel biosynthetic mechanisms involving transports of intermediates across Golgi membranes.

Domaines: Biochimie, Biologie Moléculaire; Organisation et fonctions cellulaires [q-bio.SC]; Botanique

Casper Søgaard, Anne Stenbaek, Sophie Bernard, Masood Hadi, Azeddine Driouich, et al.. GO-PROMTO Illuminates Protein Membrane Topologies of Glycan Biosynthetic Enzymes in the Golgi Apparatus of Living Tissues. PLoS ONE, 2012, 7 (2), pp.e31324. ⟨10.1371/journal.pone.0031324⟩. ⟨hal-01846949⟩