The sorting of most integral membrane proteins into the lumenal vesicles of multivesicular bodies (MVBs) is dependent on the attachment of ubiquitin (Ub) to their cytosolic domains. However, Ub is not required for sorting of Sna3, an MVB vesicle cargo protein in yeast. We show that Sna3 circumvents Ub-mediated recognition by interacting directly with Rsp5, an E3 Ub ligase that catalyzes monoubiquitination of MVB vesicle cargoes. The PPAY motif in the C-terminal cytosolic domain of Sna3 binds the WW domains in Rsp5, and Sna3 is polyubiquitinated as a consequence of this association. However, Ub does not appear to be required for transport of Sna3 via the MVB pathway because its sorting occurs under conditions in which its ubiquitination is impaired. Consistent with Ub-independent function of the MVB pathway, we show by electron microscopy that the formation of MVB vesicles does not require Rsp5 E3 ligase activity. However, cells expressing a catalytically disabled form of Rsp5 have a greater frequency of smaller MVB vesicles compared with the relatively broad distribution of vesicles seen in MVBs of wild-type cells, suggesting that the formation of MVB vesicles is influenced by Rsp5-mediated ubiquitination.
INTRODUCTIONMultivesicular bodies (MVBs) are late endosomes containing lumenal vesicles that are formed by invagination of the endosomal membrane. The lumenal MVB vesicles are delivered into the hydrolytic interior of the lysosome upon fusion of the limiting MVB membrane with the lysosomal membrane (van Deurs et al., 1995;Futter et al., 1996;Mullock et al., 1998). Many cell-surface receptors that undergo down-regulation from the plasma membrane are sorted into MVB vesicles en route to being degraded in the lysosome, including members of the receptor tyrosine kinase family in metazoans and G protein-coupled receptors in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In yeast, many biosynthetic proteins are also sorted into MVB vesicles during their transport from the Golgi to the vacuole, the functional equivalent of the lysosome (reviewed in Hicke and Dunn, 2003).Most integral membrane proteins require the attachment of a single ubiquitin (Ub) to their cytosolic domains in order to be sorted into the MVB pathway (Katzmann et al., 2001;Reggiori and Pelham, 2001;Urbanowski and Piper, 2001). Sorting of monoubiquitinated MVB cargoes is mediated by a highly conserved machinery comprised of class E Vps proteins, many of which assemble into distinct endosomal sorting complexes required for transport (ESCRTs) that contain Ub-binding domains (reviewed in Hurley and Emr, 2006). In addition to Ub-mediated cargo recognition, class E Vps proteins are generally required for MVB vesicle budding because cells in which class E Vps proteins are disrupted contain malformed late endosomes that lack lumenal vesicles (Rieder et al., 1996;Odorizzi et al., 1998;Doyotte et al., 2005).The class E Vps/ESCRT machinery is also required for the budding of many nonlytic enveloped viruses from infected host cells, which is topologically equival...