We analyzed the assembly of caveolae in CV1 cells by following the fate of newly synthesized caveolin-1 (CAV1), caveolin-2 and polymerase I and transcript release factor (PTRF)/cavin-1 biochemically and using live-cell imaging. Immediately after synthesis in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), CAV1 assembled into 8S complexes that concentrated in ER exit sites, due to a DXE sequence in the N-terminal domain. The coat protein II (COPII) machinery allowed rapid transport to the Golgi complex. Accumulating in the medial Golgi, the caveolins lost their diffusional mobility, underwent conformational changes, associated with cholesterol, and eventually assembled into 70S complexes. Together with green fluorescent protein-glycosyl-phosphatidylinositol (GFP-GPI), the newly assembled caveolin scaffolds underwent transport to the plasma membrane in vesicular carriers distinct from those containing vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) G-protein. After arrival, PTRF/cavin-1 was recruited to the caveolar domains over a period of 25 min or longer. PTRF/cavin-1 itself was present in 60S complexes that also formed in the absence of CAV1. Our study showed the existence of two novel large complexes containing caveolar coat components, and identified a hierarchy of events required for caveolae assembly occurring stepwise in three distinct locations -the ER, the Golgi complex and the plasma membrane.

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The protein complex composed of the kinase PIKfyve, the phosphatase FIG4 and the scaffolding protein VAC14 regulates the metabolism of phosphatidylinositol 3,5-bisphosphate, which serves as both a signaling lipid and the major precursor for phosphatidylinositol 5-phosphate. This complex is involved in the homeostasis of late endocytic compartments, but its precise role in maintaining the dynamic equilibrium of late endosomes, endolysosomes and lysosomes remains to be determined. Here, we report that inhibition of PIKfyve activity impairs terminal lysosome reformation from acidic and hydrolase-active, but enlarged endolysosomes. Our live-cell imaging and electron tomography data show that PIKfyve activity regulates extensive membrane remodeling that initiates reformation of lysosomes from endolysosomes. Altogether, our findings show that PIKfyve activity is required to maintain the dynamic equilibrium of late endocytic compartments by regulating the reformation of terminal storage lysosomes.

SUMMARY ALIX plays a role in nucleocapsid release during viral infection, as does lysobisphosphatidic acid (LBPA). However, the mechanism remains unclear. Here we report that LBPA is recognized within an exposed site in ALIX Bro1 domain predicted by MODA, an algorithm for discovering membrane-docking areas in proteins. LBPA interactions revealed a strict requirement for a structural calcium tightly bound near the lipid interaction site. Unlike other calcium– and phospholipid-binding proteins, the all-helical triangle-shaped fold of the Bro1 domain confers selectivity for LBPA via a pair of hydrophobic residues in a flexible loop, which undergoes a conformational change upon membrane association. Both LBPA- and calcium–binding are necessary for endosome association and virus infection, as are ALIX ESCRT-binding and dimerization capacity. We conclude that LBPA recruits ALIX onto late endosomes via the calcium-bound Bro1 domain, triggering a conformational change in ALIX to mediate the delivery of viral nucleocapsids to the cytosol during infection.

Intracellular organelles, including endosomes, show differences not only in protein but also in lipid composition. It is becoming clear from the work of many laboratories that the mechanisms necessary to achieve such lipid segregation can operate at very different levels, including the membrane biophysical properties, the interactions with other lipids and proteins, and the turnover rates or distribution of metabolic enzymes. In turn, lipids can directly influence the organelle membrane properties by changing biophysical parameters and by recruiting partner effector proteins involved in protein sorting and membrane dynamics. In this review, we will discuss how lipids are sorted in endosomal membranes and how they impact on endosome functions.

In pigment cells, melanin synthesis takes place in specialized organelles, called melanosomes. The biogenesis and maturation of melanosomes is initiated by an unpigmented step that takes place prior to the initiation of melanin synthesis and leads to the formation of luminal fibrils deriving from the pigment cell-specific pre-melanosomal protein (PMEL). In the lumen of melanosomes, PMEL fibrils optimize sequestration and condensation of the pigment melanin. Interestingly, PMEL fibrils have been described to adopt a typical amyloid-like structure. In contrast to pathological amyloids often associated with neurodegenerative diseases, PMEL fibrils represent an emergent category of physiological amyloids due to their beneficial cellular functions. The formation of PMEL fibrils within melanosomes is tightly regulated by diverse mechanisms, such as PMEL traffic, cleavage and sorting. These mechanisms revealed increasing analogies between the formation of physiological PMEL fibrils and pathological amyloid fibrils. In this review we summarize the known mechanisms of PMEL fibrillation and discuss how the recent understanding of physiological PMEL amyloid formation may help to shed light on processes involved in pathological amyloid formation.

Endosomes along the degradation pathway leading to lysosomes accumulate membranes in their lumen and thus exhibit a characteristic multivesicular appearance. These lumenal membranes typically incorporate down-regulated EGF receptor destined for degradation, but the mechanisms that control their formation remain poorly characterized. Here, we describe a novel quantitative biochemical assay that reconstitutes the formation of lumenal vesicles within late endosomes in vitro. Vesicle budding into the endosome lumen was time-, temperature-, pH-, and energy-dependent and required cytosolic factors and endosome membrane components. Our light and electron microscopy analysis showed that the compartment supporting the budding process was accessible to endocytosed bulk tracers and EGF receptor. We also found that the EGF receptor became protected against trypsin in our assay, indicating that it was sorted into the intraendosomal vesicles that were formed in vitro. Our data show that the formation of intralumenal vesicles is ESCRT-dependent, because the process was inhibited by the K173Q dominant negative mutant of hVps4. Moreover, we find that the ESCRT-I subunit Tsg101 and its partner Alix control intralumenal vesicle formation, by acting as positive and negative regulators, respectively. We conclude that budding of the limiting membrane toward the late endosome lumen, which leads to the formation of intraendosomal vesicles, is controlled by the positive and negative functions of Tsg101 and Alix, respectively. INTRODUCTIONIn eukaryotic cells, molecules of the plasma membrane, ligands and solutes are internalized into early endosomes, from where they can be recycled back to the plasma membrane, transported to the trans-Golgi network, or targeted to late endosomes and lysosomes (Gruenberg, 2001;Maxfield and McGraw, 2004;Mayor and Pagano, 2007). The latter pathway is followed in particular by ubiquitinated signaling receptors that need to be down-regulated. These receptors are incorporated into invaginations of the early endosomal membrane that form within their lumen (Hurley and Emr, 2006), thus giving rise to nascent multivesicular bodies (MVBs) or endosomal carrier vesicles (ECVs; Gruenberg and Stenmark, 2004;Piper and Katzmann, 2007), which function as intermediates between early and late endosomes. Eventually, intralumenal vesicles are delivered to lysosomes, where they are degraded together with their receptor cargo.Major progress has been made in our understanding of the molecular mechanisms that control the sorting of ubiquitinated receptors, in particular the epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor (Hurley and Emr, 2006;Slagsvold et al., 2006;Piper and Katzmann, 2007;Williams and Urbe, 2007). These receptors interact via the ubiquitin moiety with hepatocyte growth factor-regulated tyrosine kinase substrate (Hrs), which in turn binds clathrin and phosphatidyl-inositol-3-phosphate (PtdIns3P), thereby concentrating the receptor in early endosomal membrane domains (Raiborg et al., 2001;Urbe et al., 2003;Raiborg et al., ...

The function of a protein is determined by its intrinsic activity in the context of its subcellular distribution. Membranes localize proteins within cellular compartments and govern their specific activities. Discovering such membrane-protein interactions is important for understanding biological mechanisms, and could uncover novel sites for therapeutic intervention. Here we present a method for detecting membrane interactive proteins and their exposed residues that insert into lipid bilayers. Although the development process involved analysis of how C1b, C2, ENTH, FYVE, Gla, pleckstrin homology (PH) and PX domains bind membranes, the resulting Membrane Optimal Docking Area (MODA) method yields predictions for a given protein of known three dimensional structures without referring to canonical membrane-targeting modules. This approach was tested on the Arf1 GTPase, ATF2 acetyltransferase, von Willebrand factor A3 domain and Neisseria gonorrhoeae MsrB protein, and further refined with membrane interactive and non-interactive FAPP1 and PKD1 pleckstrin homology domains, respectively. Furthermore we demonstrate how this tool can be used to discover unprecedented membrane binding functions as illustrated by the Bro1 domain of Alix, which was revealed to recognize lysobisphosphatidic acid (LBPA). Validation of novel membrane-protein interactions relies on other techniques such as nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) which was used here to map the sites of micelle interaction. Together this indicates that genome-wide identification of known and novel membrane interactive proteins and sites is now feasible, and provides a new tool for functional annotation of the proteome.