The nucleotide exchange factor activity of Grp170 may explain the non-lethal phenotype of loss of Sil1 function in man and mouse.

Recent genetic work characterized homozygous mutations in the SIL1 gene as cause for the neurodegeneration that is associated with Marinesco-Sjögren syndrome in man and the woozy mouse mutant. All reported mutations were expected to result in loss of Sil1 function. Sil1 has previously been shown to act as nucleotide exchange factor for the molecular chaperone immunoglobulin heavy chain binding protein (BiP) in the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). In the yeast ER Lhs1p was shown to be able to substitute for Sil1p and to represent an alternative nucleotide exchange activity. Therefore, by analogy the mammalian ortholog of Lhs1p, Grp170, was suggested to be able to compensate for the loss of Sil1 function in many mammalian organs. Here we characterize mammalian Grp170 as alternative nucleotide exchange factor for BiP, thus providing a likely explanation for the non-lethal phenotype of the homozygous human and murine SIL1 mutations.

Polypeptide-binding proteins mediate completion of co-translational protein translocation into the mammalian endoplasmic reticulum.

The first step in the secretion of most mammalian proteins is their transport into the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Transport of pre-secretory proteins into the mammalian ER requires signal peptides in the precursor proteins and a protein translocase in the ER membrane. In addition, hitherto unidentified lumenal ER proteins have been shown to be required for vectorial protein translocation. This requirement was confirmed in this study by using proteoliposomes that were made from microsomal detergent extracts and contained either low or high concentrations of lumenal ER proteins. Furthermore, immunoglobulin-heavy-chain-binding protein (BiP) was shown to be able to substitute for the full set of lumenal proteins and, in the case of biotinylated precursor proteins, avidin was found to be able to substitute for lumenal proteins. Thus, the polypeptide-chain-binding protein BiP was identified as one lumenal protein that is involved in efficient vectorial protein translocation into the mammalian ER.

A novel type of co-chaperone mediates transmembrane recruitment of DnaK-like chaperones to ribosomes.

Recently, the homolog of yeast protein Sec63p was identified in dog pancreas microsomes. This pancreatic DnaJ-like protein was shown to be an abundant protein, interacting with both the Sec61p complex and lumenal DnaK-like proteins, such as BiP. The pancreatic endoplasmic reticulum contains a second DnaJ-like membrane protein, which had been termed Mtj1p in mouse. Mtj1p is present in pancreatic microsomes at a lower concentration than Sec63p but has a higher affinity for BiP. In addition to a lumenal J-domain, Mtj1p contains a single transmembrane domain and a cytosolic domain which is in close contact with translating ribosomes and appears to have the ability to modulate translation. The interaction with ribosomes involves a highly charged region within the cytosolic domain of Mtj1p. We propose that Mtj1p represents a novel type of co-chaperone, mediating transmembrane recruitment of DnaK-like chaperones to ribosomes and, possibly, transmembrane signaling between ribosomes and DnaK-like chaperones of the endoplasmic reticulum.