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Peroxisomes are vital metabolic organelles found in almost all eukaryotic organisms, and they rely exclusively on import of their matrix protein content from the cytosol. In vitro import of proteins into isolated peroxisomal fractions has provided a wealth of knowledge on the import process. However, the common method of protease protection garnered no information on the import of an N-terminally truncated PEX5 (PEX5C) receptor construct or peroxisomal malate dehydrogenase 1 (pMDH1) cargo protein into sunflower peroxisomes because of high degrees of protease susceptibility or resistance, respectively. Here we present a means for analysis of in vitro import through a covalent biotin label transfer and employ this method to the import of PEX5C. Label transfer demonstrates that the PEX5C construct is monomeric under the conditions of the import assay. This technique was capable of identifying the PEX5-PEX14 interaction as the first interaction of the import process through competition experiments. Labeling of the peroxisomal protein import machinery by PEX5C demonstrated that this interaction was independent of added cargo protein, and, strikingly, the interaction between PEX5C and the import machinery was shown to be ATP-dependent. These important mechanistic insights highlight the power of label transfer in studying interactions, rather than proteins, of interest and demonstrate that this technique should be applied to future studies of peroxisomal in vitro import., (© 2016 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.)

The Arabidopsis acn (acetate non-utilizing) mutants were isolated by fluoroacetate-resistant germination and seedling establishment. We report the characterization of the acn2 mutant. Physiological analyses of acn2 showed that it possessed characteristics similar to those of the mutants cts (COMATOSE)-1 and pxa [peroxisomal ABC (ATP-binding-cassette) transporter]1. The acn2 locus was mapped to within 3 cM of the CTS gene on the bottom arm of chromosome IV using CAPS (cleavage amplification polymorphism) and SSLP (simple sequence-length polymorphism) markers. Crossing acn2 and cts-1 failed to restore the fluoroacetate-sensitive phenotype, suggesting that these mutations were allelic. Sequencing of the ACN2 locus revealed a C-->T nonsense mutation in exon 13, which would have resulted in the elimination of the C-terminal hemitransporter domain of the encoded protein. Neither the full-length CTS protein nor the truncated protein was detected on immunoblots using either C-terminal- or N-terminal-specific anti-CTS antibodies respectively, demonstrating the absence of the entire CTS protein in acn2 mutants. Emerged seedlings of both cts-1 and pxa1 alleles displayed increased resistance to FAc (monofluoroacetic acid) compared with the corresponding wild-type seedlings. Complementation studies showed that mutation of the CTS gene was responsible for the FAc-resistant phenotype, as when the wild-type protein was expressed in both the cts-1 and pxa1 mutant lines, the strains became FAc-sensitive. Feeding studies confirmed that both acn2 and cts-1 mutants were compromised in their ability to convert radiolabelled acetate into soluble carbohydrate. These results demonstrate a role for the ABC protein CTS in providing acetate to the glyoxylate cycle in developing seedlings.

Peroxisomes are organelles found in all eukaryotic cells. Peroxisomes import integral membrane proteins post-translationally, and PEX19 is a predominantly cytosolic, farnesylated protein of mammalian and yeast cells that binds multiple peroxisome membrane proteins and is required for their correct targeting/insertion to the peroxisome membrane. We report the characterisation of the Arabidopsisthaliana homologue of PEX19 which is a predominantly cytosolic protein. AtPEX19 is encoded by two genes (designated AtPEX19-1 and AtPEX19-2) that are expressed in all tissues and at all developmental stages of the plant. Quantitative real time PCR shows that AtPEX19-1 and AtPEX19-2 have distinct expression profiles. Using in vitro translation and co-immunoprecipitation AtPEX19-1 was shown to bind to the Arabidopsis peroxisomal membrane protein PEX10. Additionally, bacterially expressed recombinant AtPEX19-1 was able to bind a fusion protein consisting of the C-terminus of PEX10 and glutathione S-transferase in pull-down assays, thereby demonstrating that non-farnesylated AtPEX19 can interact with the C-terminus of AtPEX10. Purified recombinant AtPEX19-1 was analysed by gel filtration chromatography and was found to have a molecular weight consistent with it forming a dimer and a dimer was detected in Arabidopsis cell extracts that was slightly destabilised in the presence of DTT. Moreover, cross-linking studies of native AtPEX19 suggest that in vivo it is the dimeric species of the protein that preferentially forms complexes with other proteins.