Of the two Aspergillus early endosomal Rab5 paralogues, RabB recruits, in its GTP conformation, Vps19, Vps45, and Vps34, and the CORVET complex and couples acquisition of PI(3)P degradative identity with the long-distance movement of early endosomes. RabA also recruits CORVET, albeit less efficiently. The simultaneous loss of RabA and RabB is lethal.

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A potent hemolytic polypeptide, sticholysin II, has been purified to homogeneity from the sea anemone Stichodactyla helianthus. The protein produces leakage of aqueous contents of model lipid vesicles composed of either phosphatidylcholine or sphingomyelin if cholesterol is present in these membranes. The leakage has been analyzed by measuring the dequenching of the fluorescent dye 8-aminonaphthalene-1,3,6-trisulfonic acid, coencapsulated with its quencher N,N′-p-xylenebispyridinium bromide, upon dilution of the vesicle contents into the external medium. The protein displays a maximum effect on vesicles containing 20Ϫ25% cholesterol. Leakage is also produced in vesicles composed of mixtures of phosphatidylcholine and sphingomyelin, the maximum effect being observed for 20Ϫ30% sphingomyelin molar content. The extent of the leakage is dependent on the molecular mass of the vesicle entrapped solutes in the range 445Ϫ960 Da. This suggests the involvement of a pore of about 1 nm in diameter based on the limiting size observed for the leakage of the different solutes. Oligomerization of the protein is apparently involved in the membrane permeabilization, based on the kinetic analysis of the leakage process which is shown to proceed through an all-or-none mechanism.Keywords : cytolysin; lipid vesicle; membrane permeabilization; protein-lipid interaction.Stichodactyla helianthus is a sea anemone occurring in the further isolated and resolved into two cytolytic proteins, sticholysin I and II, by ion-exchange chromatography (Díaz et al., coastal waters of the Caribbean region. Like other coelenterates, it produces many toxic peptides and proteins located within in-1992; Tejuca et al., 1996), that display very different primary structure. In contrast, it has been reported that two distinct anemtracellular specialized organelles called nematocysts and employed on the tentacles for defense and/or attack. These organ-one species produce a cytolytic protein of practically identical amino acid sequence. This is the case described for equinatoxin elles sting the prey by means of a rapid projection of a hollow tubule through which the toxic polypeptides are injected. The II from Actinia equina (Belmonte et al., 1994) and tenebrosin-C (Simpson et al., 1990) from Actinia tenebrosa. toxicity of these products, many of them are lethal substances, has been known for a long time. They can be divided into lowCytolysin III from S. helianthus, the most studied sea anemone toxin, was described as a potent hemolytic factor (Bernmolecular-mass (3Ϫ5 kDa) neurotoxins affecting sodium channels, and single polypeptide chain proteins (15Ϫ20 kDa), cyto-heimer and Avigad, 1976), although the extent of the effect was different depending on the origin of the mammalian erythrocytes lysins, acting on cell membranes (cytolytic effects towards red blood cells, platelets and fibroblasts have been reported ; Kem, considered. It was further demonstrated that the toxin increases the membrane permeability to small ions and solutes, probably 1988; Bernheimer...

The oligomeric complex transport protein particle I (TRAPPI) mediates nucleotide exchange on the RAB GTPase RAB1/Ypt1. TRAPPII is composed of TRAPPI plus three additional subunits, Trs120, Trs130, and Trs65. Unclear is whether TRAPPII mediates nucleotide exchange on RAB1/Ypt1, RAB11/Ypt31, or both. In Aspergillus nidulans, RabO RAB1 resides in the Golgi, RabE RAB11 localizes to exocytic post-Golgi carriers undergoing transport to the apex, and hypA encodes Trs120.

Highly motile fungal early endosomes can be easily distinguished from more static late endosomes and vacuoles, a feature that is exploited to study endosomal maturation. RabA/RabB early endosomes mature into RabSRab7 late endosomes as they move away from the tip where endocytosis predominates, augmenting their size, with concomitant loss of motility.

TRAnsport Protein Particle complexes (TRAPPs) are ubiquitous regulators of membrane traffic mediating nucleotide exchange on the Golgi regulatory GTPases RAB1 and RAB11. In S. cerevisiae and metazoans TRAPPs consist of two large oligomeric complexes: RAB11-activating TRAPPII and RAB1-activating TRAPPIII. These share a common core TRAPPI heteroheptamer, absent in metazoans but detected in minor proportions in yeast, likely originating from in vitro-destabilized TRAPPII/III. Despite overall TRAPP conservation, the budding yeast genome has undergone extensive loss of genes, and lacks homologues of some metazoan TRAPP subunits. With nearly twice the total number of genes of S. cerevisiae, another ascomycete Aspergillus nidulans has also been used for studies on TRAPPs. We combined sizefractionation chromatography with single-step purification coupled to mass-spectrometry and negative-stain electron microscopy to establish the relative abundance, composition and architecture of Aspergillus TRAPPs, which consist of TRAPPII and TRAPPIII in a 2:1 proportion, plus a minor amount of TRAPPI. We show that Aspergillus TRAPPIII contains homologues of metazoan TRAPPC11, TRAPPC12 and TRAPPC13 subunits, absent in S. cerevisiae, and establish that these subunits are recruited to the complex by Tca17/TRAPPC2L, which itself binds to the 'Trs33 side' of the complex. Thus Aspergillus TRAPPs compositionally resemble mammalian TRAPPs to a greater extent than those in budding yeast. Exploiting the ability of constitutively-active (GEF-independent, due to accelerated GDP release) RAB1* and RAB11* alleles to rescue viability of null mutants lacking essential TRAPP subunits, we establish that the only essential role of TRAPPs is activating RAB1 and RAB11, and genetically classify each essential subunit according to their role(s) in TRAPPII (TRAPPII-specific subunits) or TRAPPII and TRAPPIII (core TRAPP subunits). Constitutively-active RAB mutant combinations allowed examination of TRAPP composition in mutants lacking essential subunits, which led to the discovery of a stable Trs120/Trs130/Trs65/Tca17 TRAPPII-specific subcomplex whose Trs20-and Trs33-dependent assembly onto core TRAPP generates TRAPPII.

BackgroundIdentifying new high-performance enzymes or enzyme complexes to enhance biomass degradation is the key for the development of cost-effective processes for ethanol production. Irpex lacteus is an efficient microorganism for wheat straw pretreatment, yielding easily hydrolysable products with high sugar content. Thus, this fungus was selected to investigate the enzymatic system involved in lignocellulose decay, and its secretome was compared to those from Phanerochaete chrysosporium and Pleurotus ostreatus which produced different degradation patterns when growing on wheat straw. Extracellular enzymes were analyzed through 2D-PAGE, nanoLC/MS-MS, and homology searches against public databases.ResultsIn wheat straw, I. lacteus secreted proteases, dye-decolorizing and manganese-oxidizing peroxidases, and H2O2 producing-enzymes but also a battery of cellulases and xylanases, excluding those implicated in cellulose and hemicellulose degradation to their monosaccharides, making these sugars poorly available for fungal consumption. In contrast, a significant increase of β-glucosidase production was observed when I. lacteus grew in liquid cultures. P. chrysosporium secreted more enzymes implicated in the total hydrolysis of the polysaccharides and P. ostreatus produced, in proportion, more oxidoreductases.ConclusionThe protein pattern secreted during I. lacteus growth in wheat straw plus the differences observed among the different secretomes, justify the fitness of I. lacteus for biopretreatment processes in 2G-ethanol production. Furthermore, all these data give insight into the biological degradation of lignocellulose and suggest new enzyme mixtures interesting for its efficient hydrolysis.

Intracellular traffic in Aspergillus nidulans hyphae must cope with the challenges that the high rates of apical extension (1μm/min) and the long intracellular distances (>100 μm) impose. Understanding the ways in which the hyphal tip cell coordinates traffic to meet these challenges is of basic importance, but is also of considerable applied interest, as fungal invasiveness of animals and plants depends critically upon maintaining these high rates of growth. Rapid apical extension requires localization of cell-wall-modifying enzymes to hyphal tips. By combining genetic blocks in different trafficking steps with multidimensional epifluorescence microscopy and quantitative image analyses we demonstrate that polarization of the essential chitin-synthase ChsB occurs by indirect endocytic recycling, involving delivery/exocytosis to apices followed by internalization by the sub-apical endocytic collar of actin patches and subsequent trafficking to TGN cisternae, where it accumulates for ~1 min before being re-delivered to the apex by a RAB11/TRAPPII-dependent pathway. Accordingly, ChsB is stranded at the TGN by Sec7 inactivation but re-polarizes to the apical dome if the block is bypassed by a mutation in geaAgea1 that restores growth in the absence of Sec7. That polarization is independent of RAB5, that ChsB predominates at apex-proximal cisternae, and that upon dynein impairment ChsB is stalled at the tips in an aggregated endosome indicate that endocytosed ChsB traffics to the TGN via sorting endosomes functionally located upstream of the RAB5 domain and that this step requires dynein-mediated basipetal transport. It also requires RAB6 and its effector GARP (Vps51/Vps52/Vps53/Vps54), whose composition we determined by MS/MS following affinity chromatography purification. Ablation of any GARP component diverts ChsB to vacuoles and impairs growth and morphology markedly, emphasizing the important physiological role played by this pathway that, we propose, is central to the hyphal mode of growth.