Yeast membrane trafficking Flashcards
Why do eukaryotic cells need membrane trafficking? (4)
- Compartmentalisation allows more complexity
- Enzymes can modify specific subsets of proteins in certain compartments
- Proteins need to be exposed to distinct sets of enzymes for sequential modifications
- Needed to retrieve proteins back to their ‘resident’ compartment
What are the 2 major features of membrane trafficking pathways?
- Secretory/exocytic (biosynthetic)
- Endocytic (recycling/degradative)
What is the secretory/exocytic pathway? (4)
- Proteins enter the ER lumen during synthesis
- Trafficked to the Golgi, ends up in the trans-Golgi network
- Proteins secreted via constitutive secretion/regulated secretion
- Enzymes being made go through the pathway and are trafficked to lysosomes via transport vesicles
What is the trans-Golgi network?
Sorting compartment of the Golgi apparatus
What is constitutive secretion?
Secretion of proteins without specific signals on them
What is regulated secretion?
Proteins sorted into secretory vesicles and held there until a signal is received for secretion
What is the endocytic pathway? (2)
- Cell surface to the late Golgi/ER/lysosome
- Intersects with the exocytic pathway
How are proteins modified during trafficking?
Proteins can be glycosylated/proteolytically cleaved as they transit the ER and Golgi
What is glycosylation?
Addition of oligosaccharides
What are the 2 types of glycosylation that can occur during exocytosis
- N-linked glycosylation
- O-linked glycosylation
What is N-linked glycosylation?
Attachment of oligosaccharides to a nitrogen atom within asparagine
What is O-linked glycosylation?
Attachment of oligosaccharides to an oxygen atom in serine or threonine
What is the process of glycosylation? (5)
- Pre-formed large oligosaccharide is attached to asparagine/serine/threonine site when the protein is being made on the rER membrane
- The oligosaccharide is trimmed down at the ER
- The protein is moved to the Golgi in a vesicle, sugar trimmed down again
- Further sugars are added as the protein moves through the Golgi
- The sugars at the ends of branches are often important for recognition
What is the purpose of glycosylation? (2)
- To assist folding
- As a ligand: intracellular for trafficking/sorting, extracellular for interactions with ECM/proteins/sugars on other cells
What are the advantages of yeast as a model organism? (4)
- Amenable for genetic studies (can be haploid and diploid cells)
- Entire genome sequence is known
- Limited gene diversity
- Fundamental pathways are conserved
What are the disadvantages of yeast as a model organism? (3)
- Limited cell-cell contact so not useful for multicellularity information
- Small so high resolution imaging of intracellular compartments is difficult
- Has a cell wall so can’t microinject