Lecture 28 Flashcards
What is exocytosis (AKA. secretion)?
The process of moving material using membrane-bound secretory vesicles out of the cell
Vesicles must fuse with the membrane to release their components
It is also the way to get membrane proteins from the vesicular membrane to the plasma membrane surface
What are the steps for exocytosis?
1) Vesicles are generated in the Golgi
2) Transported on cytoskeletal tracts (eg. microtubules or actin) to the plasma membrane
3) Get captured by CATCHR family members. Family members have a low sequence identity, but conserved helical bundle structures
4) Binding of the complexes at the membrane brings the vesicle very close to the plasma membrane. This is followed by a SNARE on the vesicle binding to a SNARE on the plasma membrane
5) Membrane fusion
6) Extracellular release of vesicular material
What tethering factors will we talk about today?
Multisubunit tethering factors (the CATCHR family members)
What does the CATCHR family members include?
1) Exocyst complex (~750kDa) (Exocytosis)
2) Conserved oligomeric Golgi (COG) complex
3) Dsl1 complex (At the ER. Involved in ER-ER fusion events and Golgi vesicle fusion at the ER).
4) Golgi-associated retrograde protein (GARP) complex (Trans-GOlgi)
5) Endosome-associated retrograde protein (EARP) complex (Recycling endosomes)
What does the use of these complexes do?
The use of these complexes gives the specificity of binding for each segment of the process
How many subunits are in the protein complex?
An 8 subunit protein complex that tethers secretory vesicles at the plasma membrane to undergo exocytosis
What are the 8 subunits of exocyst?
Sec 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 15, Exo70, Exo84
Who discovered the Sec proteins?
The Sec proteins (all 6 of them) were discovered by Randy Schekman in a secretory pathway screen they ran in yeast
How are Sec proteins named?
“Sec” proteins are named from “secretion” in yeast as they are known to be needed for secretion
What happens if any one protein is mutated?
If any 1 protein [apart from Sec 3] is mutated (in Yeast), then vesicles accumulate. They are not exocytosed.
Thus, Sec 3 is not essential for secretion in Yeast, it is likely a regulator of the complex
What is the sequence similarity amongst the Exocyst components?
<10%
But all have long helical compositions
What shapes do exocysts form?
Exocyst forms flower (unfixed) or a “Y” shape (fixed)
This suggests that the 2 arms could bind to opposing membranes to facilitate the fusion event
What is fixation supposed to do?
Fixation is supposed to lock protein in their conformations, but here the conformation changed
What happens if you isolate the exocyst complex?
If you freeze cells then isolate out the exocyst complex from yeast you get yet another different physical structure by EM! Importantly a model that combined cryo-EM, crosslinking data and mass spectrometry assembled a structure that looks very similar to that EM
Could the structure be changing their conformation when bound and not bound to a vesicle?
No
Measurements of distances between the exocyst molecules indicate that there is little (if any) changes to the complex when bound or not bound to vesicles
Additionally, there is no disassembly of components when bound to vesicles
This shows that exocyst is likely pre-formed prior to vesicle docking
What is the exocyst made of?
It’s made of 2 modules (4 proteins in each molecule):
MODULE 1: Sec 10,15, Exo70 and Exo84. Sec 15 sits by itself at the bottom of the complex
MODULE 2: Sec 3,5,6,8. Sec 6 makes a cap on the top of the structure
Is it a weak or strong interactions between the exocyst protein bonds?
Exocyst protein bonds between subunits are very weak
This is likely useful for the assembly and disassembly of the complex
Where is the strongest interaction?
The strongest interaction are :
Sec 6-8, Sec 3-5 and Sec 10-15 (in order)
Can exocyst components bind to non-exocyst components?
Yes
Sec 15 can bind to Rab GTPases and Myosin 2 on vesicles
Exo 70 binds to PI (4,5)P2, CDC42 and Rho
Sec 6 binds to SNARES
Sec 3 binds to PI (4,5)P2, CDC42, a t-SNARE and Rho
Sec5 and Exo84 bind to Ral GTPases