Protein-specific features of the general secretion pathway in yeast: the secretion of acid phosphatase

The major phosphate-repressible acid phosphatase (APase) of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a cell wall glycoprotein, has been extensively used as a reporter protein to analyse successive steps in the yeast secretory pathway. In contrast to other yeast secretory proteins, APase can still be translocated into the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) even when it is made without its signal peptide. This property illustrates the permissiveness of targeting to the ER in yeast. Studies on APase-containing hybrid proteins have provided some of the evidence that specific soluble factors must interact with secretory proteins prior to their translocation across the ER membrane. A systematic analysis of mutations affecting the sequence of the APase signal peptide cleavage site demonstrated that cleavage occurs only when the last amino acid of the signal sequence is small and neutral. This was one of the first studies to verify the requirements for signal peptidase cleavage that had previously only been predicted from statistical analysis. Studies performed either with inhibitors of glycosylation or with mutant APases demonstrated the critical role of core glycosylation for APase folding, which is essential for efficient transport beyond the ER. Following the fate of particular modified APases along the secretory pathway provided insights into some general properties of the secretory apparatus and illustrated the specific requirements for a given protein during its intracellular traffic.