Identification and characterization of homologues of the Exocyst component Sec10p

The SEC10 gene product is a member of the Exocyst complex essential for exocytosis in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We report here the cloning and characterization of human Sec10p (hSec10p; GenBank accession number U85946). hSec10p is a 77-kDa protein with 23% amino acid identity to yeast Sec10p and 37% identity to a C. elegans protein found in the database. Northern and Western blot analyses indicate that hSec10 has a broad tissue distribution. Immunofluorescence staining of COS cells cotransfected with hSec10p and a mammalian Sec8p demonstrates that these two proteins have an identical distribution in the cell including a localization in the peripheral cytoplasm. These data suggest that hSec10p is a component of the mammalian counterpart of the yeast Exocyst complex essential for post-Golgi traffic.