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dictyNews Volume 37 Number 13
dictyNews
Electronic Edition
Volume 37, number 13
November 25, 2011
Please submit abstracts of your papers as soon as they have been
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Abstracts
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A single Beta adaptin contributes to AP1 and AP2 complexes and clathrin
function in Dictyostelium
R. Thomas Sosa*, Michelle M. Weber *,Yujia Wen*, and Theresa J. O'Halloran
Traffic, in press
The assembly of clathrin-coated vesicles is important for numerous
cellular processes, including nutrient uptake and membrane organization.
Important contributors to clathrin assembly are four tetrameric Assembly
Proteins, also called Adaptor Proteins (AP's), each of which contains a
beta subunit. We identified a single beta subunit, named beta1/2, that
contributes to both the AP1 and AP2 complexes of Dictyostelium.
Disruption of the gene encoding beta1/2 resulted in severe defects in
growth, cytokinesis, and development. Additionally, cells lacking beta1/2
displayed profound osmoregulatory defects including the absence of
contractile vacuoles and mislocalization of contractile vacuole markers.
The phenotypes of beta1/2 were most similar to previously described
phenotypes of clathrin and AP1 mutants, supporting a particularly
important contribution of AP1 to clathrin pathways in Dictyostelium
cells. The absence of beta1/2 in cells led to significant reductions
in the protein amounts of the medium-sized subunits of the AP1 and AP2
complexes, establishing a role for the beta subunit in the stability of
the medium subunits. Dictyostelium beta1/2 could resemble a common
ancestor of the more specialized beta1 and beta2 subunits of the
vertebrate AP complexes. Our results support the essential contribution
a single beta subunit to the stability and function AP1 and AP2 in a
simple eukaryote.
Submitted by Terry O'Halloran [t.ohalloran@mail.utexas.edu]
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[End dictyNews, volume 37, number 13]
