THE CAPACITY TO RETRIEVE ESCAPED ER PROTEINS EXTENDS TO THE TRANS-MOST CISTERNA OF THE GOLGI STACK

To explore how far into the Golgi stack the capacity to retrieve KDEL proteins extends, we have introduced an exogenous probe (the peptide Y HPNSTCSEKDEL) into the TGN of living cells. For this purpose, a CHO ce ll line expressing a c-myc-tagged version of the transmembrane protein TGN38-which cycles between the TGN and the cell surface-was generated . The cells internalized peptides that were disulfide bonded to anti-m yc antibodies and accumulated the peptide-antibody complexes in the TG N. Peptides released from these complexes under-went retrograde transp ort to the ER, as evidenced by the transfer of N-linked carbohydrate t o their acceptor site. The KDEL-tagged glycopeptides (similar to 10% o f the endocytosed load) behaved like endogenous ER residents: they sta yed intracellular, and their oligosaccharide side chains remained sens itive to endoglycosidase H. An option thus exists to extract ER reside nts even at the most distant pole of the Golgi stack, suggesting that sorting of resident from exported ER proteins may occur in a multistag e process akin to fractional distillation.