Abstract. Auxilin was recently identified as cofactor for hsc70 in the uncoating of clathrin-coated vesicles (Ungewickell, E., H. Ungewickell, S.E. Holstein, R. Lindner, K. Prasad, W. Barouch, B. Martin, L.E.Greene, and E. Eisenberg. 1995. Nature (Lond.). 378: 632--635). By constructing different glutathione-S-transferase (GST)-auxilin fragments, we show here that cooperation of auxilin's J domain (segment 813-910) with an adjoining clathrin binding domain (segment 547-814) suffices to dissociate clathrin baskets in the presence of hsc70 and ATP. When the two domains are expressed as separate GST fusion proteins, the cofactor activity is lost, even though both retain their respective functions. The clathrin binding domain binds to triskelia like intact auxilin with a maximum stoichiometry of 3 and concomitantly promotes their assembly into regular baskets. A fragment containing auxilin's J domain associates in an ATP-dependent reaction with hsc70 to form a complex with a half-life of 8 min at 25°C. When the clathrin binding domain and the J domain are recombined via dimerization of their GST moieties, cofactor activity is partially recovered. The interaction between auxilin's J domain and hsc70 causes rapid hydrolysis of bound ATP. Release of inorganic phosphate appears to be correlated with the disintegration of the complex between auxilin's J domain and hsc70. We infer that the metastable complex composed of auxilin, hsc70, ADP, and Pi contains an activated form of hsc70, primed to engage clathrin that is brought into apposition with it by the DnaJ homologue auxilin. C LATHRIN-COATED vesicles are agents for the vectorial transport of selected membrane proteins from the plasma membrane and the trans-Golgi network to the endosomal system (4, 17). After budding and pinching off from the donor membrane, coated vesicles rapidly shed their coats. An enzyme catalyzing the uncoating of purified bovine brain coated vesicles was first purified from brain cytosol (34) and shown to be a member of the 70-kD heat shock protein (hsp) 1 70 family (7, 40). These proteins participate in numerous functions including the folding of newly synthesized proteins, translocation of proteins across membranes, disassembly of oligomeric complexes, and protection of proteins against irreversible denaturation under conditions of stress (16,19 as cofactor, the eukaryotic DnaJ homologue auxilin (41). Auxilin was originally identified as a clathrin assembly protein (2). This loose term refers to proteins that bind to clathrin and promote its polymerization into baskets. Auxilin binds to the region in the clathrin heavy chain that forms the hub and the proximal part of the triskelion leg. Light chains are not required for the interaction of auxilin with clathrin (25). Auxilin has in common with members of the DnaJ protein family a so-called J domain. This element of ~70 residues occupies the carboxyl-terminal end of the auxilin chain. When compared with the known J regions, it shows least homology to the archetypal J domain of bacterial DnaJ....