Reinitiation of protein translocation across the endoplasmic reticulum membrane for the topogenesis of multispanning membrane proteins

Abstract

The reinitiation of the translocation of the growing nascent chain across the endoplasmic reticulum membrane is essential for the topogenesis of multispanning membrane proteins. We investigated the requirements for the reinitiation process using model proteins in which systematically designed sequences were inserted after two preceding topogenic sequences, namely the N-terminal signal sequence (S) and stop transfer sequence (St). The model proteins were translated in vitro in the presence of rough microsomes, and the final topology of the proteins in the microsomal membrane was examined by proteolytic digestion. The structural requirements for S and the reinitiation sequence (R) overlapped to some extent, but substantial differences were noticed. When St and R were separated by a short cytoplasmic segment (58 amino acids), the efficiency of the reinitiation was not affected by the concentration of the signal recognition particle (SRP) in the translation system, even though the sequence inserted as R was an SRP-dependent signal sequence. However, when the cytoplasmic segment was longer (100 amino acids), the reinitiation efficiency was reduced, and the SRP improved the overall efficiency as well as impaired the accessibility of the processing site after the R to the signal peptidase.