Secretory proteins made in Xenopus luevis oocytes under the direction of heterologous messenger RNA are modified, topologically segregated and exported. Thus the oocyte may serve as a useful surrogate secretory system and we have studied some of the factors governing access to the export pathway. Unglycosylated chicken ovalbumin, synthesized and trapped in the cytosol, is not secreted but glycosylated ovalbumin, found sequestered within vesicles, is exported from oocytes. However, ovalbumin, which is transferred across the endoplasmic reticulum in the presence of tunicamycin and which is indistinguishable by immunoprecipitation, by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and by concanavalin-A -Sepharose binding from the cytosolic form, is still secreted. Guinea-pig milk proteins and human interferon are also exported from tunicamycin-treated frog cells. These observations demonstrate that access to the endoplasmic reticulum but not glycosylation is a mandatory intermediate step in secretion, and emphasize the advantages of the oocyte as a surrogate system for the study of the later events in the gene expression pathway.Oocytes of Xenopus luevis will export guinea-pig caseins and human interferon encoded by microinjected mRNAs; heterologous non-secretory proteins are not secreted [l]. Recently we have shown that secretory proteins from such diverse sources as rats, insects and plants are also selectively exported from oocytes (Lane et al., unpublished observations). These results demonstrate the possible usefulness of the oocyte as a general system for studies of protein secretion. In this paper we further examine the fidelity of protein secretion in this system by correlating the subcellular location and secondary modification of secretory proteins with their subsequent fate.Nascent polypeptide chains of secretory proteins contain a 'signal' sequence of some 15-30 amino acids [2-51, which interacts with a putative membrane receptor. This interaction results in the vectorial discharge of nascent polypeptides into the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum. Secondary modification (e.g. glycosylation [6], phosphorylation [6]) of protein can occur within the endoplasmic reticulum and the use of tunicamycin, an inhibitor of glycosylation [7,8] indicates that this modification may protect proteins from degradation [9], affect the rate of secretion [lo, 111 or alter the intracellular destination of proteins [12]. The subsequent events in secretion are less well understood but are popularly thought Ahhreviution. PhMeSOZF, phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride.to involve encapsulation of secretory polypeptides within the Golgi apparatus followed by movement of the resultant secretory vesicles to the cell surface, where exocytosis occurs [6,13,14].It is generally believed that the co-translational transfer of secretory proteins across the membranes of the endoplasmic reticulum is a mandatory step in the secretion of these proteins [3,4] ; the corollary of this theory is that proteins localized in the cytosol cannot be secreted. Much of...