The 70-kDa heat-shock cognate protein (Hsc70) chaperone is an ATP-dependent "disassembly enzyme" for many subcellular structures, including clathrin-coated vesicles where it functions as an uncoating ATPase. Hsc70, and its cochaperone auxilin together catalyze coat disassembly. Like other members of the Hsp70 chaperone family, it is thought that ATP-bound Hsc70 recognizes the clathrin triskelion through an unfolded exposed hydrophobic segment. The best candidate is the unstructured C terminus (residues 1631-1675) of the heavy chain at the foot of the tripod below the hub, containing the sequence motif QLMLT, closely related to the sequence bound preferentially by the substrate groove of Hsc70 (Fotin et al., 2004b). To test this hypothesis, we generated in insect cells recombinant mammalian triskelions that in vitro form clathrin cages and clathrin/AP-2 coats exactly like those assembled from native clathrin. We show that coats assembled from recombinant clathrin are good substrates for ATP-and auxilin-dependent, Hsc70-catalyzed uncoating. Finally, we show that this uncoating reaction proceeds normally when the coats contain recombinant heavy chains truncated C-terminal to the QLMLT motif, but very inefficiently when the motif is absent. Thus, the QLMLT motif is required for Hsc-70 -facilitated uncoating, consistent with the proposal that this sequence is a specific target of the chaperone.
INTRODUCTIONClathrin-coated vesicles, the best known carrier of intracellular membrane traffic, transport proteins and lipids from the plasma membrane to endosomes and between endosomes and the trans-Golgi network. Polymerization of the principal coat protein clathrin into a lattice-like assembly by sequential addition of individual, cytosolic clathrin trimers to a growing shell shapes the budding coated pit (Ehrlich et al., 2004; for review, see Kirchhausen, 2000). Intermediary proteins, known as adaptors, form the interface between the outer clathrin coat and the incorporated membrane bilayer. These adaptors selectively recruit membrane-anchored proteins ("cargo"). The most prominent adaptors are the heterotetrameric AP-2 and its cousins AP-1, AP-3, and AP-4, but there are other, presumably more specialized, adaptors, such as -arrestins, epsin, GGAs, and dishevelled (Yu et al., 2007; for review, see Owen et al., 2004;Robinson, 2004).Coats can assemble in vitro without incorporated membrane, either from clathrin alone ("cages", stable only at reduced pH) or from clathrin plus heteroteterameric APs ("coats", stable at neutral pH) (Keen et al., 1979;Kirchhausen and Harrison, 1981; Vigers et al., 1986a,b;Kirchhausen, 2000;Fotin et al., 2004b). Coat assembly in vitro can proceed to completion without intervention of other factors. In vivo, coat assembly occurs only on membrane surfaces, and fission (pinching off) of the incorporating bilayer requires the large GTPase, dynamin (Sever, 2002;Praefcke and McMahon, 2004;Kruchten and McNiven, 2006;Macia et al., 2006). Removal of the coat (uncoating), essential for subsequent vesicle f...