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Functional analyses of the plant-specific C-terminal region of VPS9a: the activating factor for RAB5 in Arabidopsis thaliana

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Abstracts

Recent studies demonstrated that endosomal transport played important roles in various plant functions. The RAB GTPase regulates the tethering and fusion steps of vesicle trafficking to target membranes in each trafficking pathway by acting as a molecular switch. RAB GTPase activation is catalyzed by specific guanine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs) that promote the exchange of GDP on the RAB GTPase with GTP. RAB5 is a key regulator of endosomal trafficking and is uniquely diversified in plants; the plant-unique RAB5 group ARA6 was acquired in addition to conventional RAB5 during evolution. In Arabidopsis thaliana, conventional RAB5, ARA7 and RHA1 regulate the endosomal/vacuolar trafficking pathways, whereas ARA6 acts in the pathway from the endosome to the plasma membrane. Despite their distinct functions, all RAB5 members are activated by the common GEF VACUOLAR PROTEIN SORTING 9a (VPS9a). VPS9a consists of an N-terminal conserved domain and C-terminal region (CTR) with no similarity to known functional domains. In this study, we investigated the function of the CTR by generating truncated versions of VPS9a and found that it was specifically responsible for ARA6 regulation; moreover, the CTR was required for the oligomerization and correct localization of VPS9a. The oligomerization of VPS9a was mediated by a distinctive region consisting of 36 amino acids in the CTR that was conserved in plant RAB5 GEFs. Thus the VPS9a CTR plays an important role in the regulation of the two RAB5 groups in plants.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. T. Nakagawa (Shimane University), Dr. S. Shimizu (Tokyo Medical and Dental University) and Dr. T. Demura (NAIST) for sharing materials and Dr. K. Ebine and Dr. E. Ito (The University of Tokyo) for critical reading of the manuscript. This study was supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (A.N. and T.U.), JST, PRESTO (T.U.), and a Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows (M.S.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan

    Mariko Sunada, Takashi Ueda & Akihiko Nakano

  2. Graduate School of Science, Kobe University, 1-1 Rokkodai, Nada-ku, Kobe, 657-8501, Japan

    Tatsuaki Goh

  3. Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), PRESTO, 4-1-8 Honcho, Kawaguchi, Saitama, 332-0012, Japan

    Takashi Ueda

  4. Live Cell Super-Resolution Imaging Research Team, RIKEN Center for Advances Photonics, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama, 351-0198, Japan

    Akihiko Nakano

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  1. Mariko Sunada
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Correspondence to Takashi Ueda.

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Sunada, M., Goh, T., Ueda, T. et al. Functional analyses of the plant-specific C-terminal region of VPS9a: the activating factor for RAB5 in Arabidopsis thaliana . J Plant Res 129, 93–102 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10265-015-0760-5

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