Lysosomal aspartylglucosaminidase is processed to the active subunit complex in the endoplasmic reticulum

Aspartylglucosaminidase (AGA) is a lysosomal enzyme, the deficiency of which leads to a human storage disease, aspartylglucosaminuria (AGU). Although numerous mutations have been identified in AGU patients, elucidation of the molecular pathogenesis of the disease has been hampered by the missing information on the cellular events resulting in the maturation and activation of the enzyme. Here we used the expression of in vitro mutagenized constructs of the AGA cDNA to define three specific proteolytic trimming steps resulting in mature AGA. Removal of the signal peptide is immediately followed by proteolytic cleavage of the precursor into two subunits and results in biologically active enzyme already in the endoplasmic reticulum. This early activation has not previously been described for lysosomal enzymes. The subsequent lysosomal trimming does not influence the enzymatic activity of AGA. It consists only of a single proteolytic cleavage which removes 10 amino acids from the C-terminal end of the larger subunit, in contrast to the multistep lysosomal processing observed in several other hydrolases.