Skip to main content
PMC home page
The Journal of Cell Biology logoLink to The Journal of Cell Biology
. 1986 Mar 1;102(3):889–901. doi: 10.1083/jcb.102.3.889

Mutants of the membrane-binding region of Semliki Forest virus E2 protein. I. Cell surface transport and fusogenic activity

PMCID: PMC2114105  PMID: 3753980

Abstract

Three mutations of the membrane-binding region of the Semliki Forest virus (SFV) p62 polypeptide (the precursor for virion E3 and E2) have been made by oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis of a cDNA clone encoding the SFV structural proteins. One of the mutations (A2) substitutes a Glu for an Ala in the middle of the hydrophobic stretch which spans the bilayer. A1 and A3 alter the two basic charged amino acids in the cytoplasmic domain next to the hydrophobic region. The wild-type charge cluster of Arg-Ser-Lys (+2) has been changed to Gly- Ser-Met (0;A3) or to Gly-Ser-Glu (-1;A1). The mutant p62 proteins have been analyzed both in the presence and the absence of E1, the other half of the heterodimer spike complex of SFV. The mutant proteins expressed in COS-7 cells are glycosylated and are of the expected sizes. When co-expressed with E1, all three mutants are cleaved to yield the E2 protein and transported to the surface of COS-7 cells. When expressed in the absence of E1, the mutant p62 proteins remain uncleaved but still reach the cell surface. Once at the cell surface, all three mutants, when co-expressed with E1, can promote low pH- triggered cell-cell fusion. These results show that the three mutant p62/E2 proteins are still membrane associated in a functionally unaltered way.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (2.5 MB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Adams G. A., Rose J. K. Incorporation of a charged amino acid into the membrane-spanning domain blocks cell surface transport but not membrane anchoring of a viral glycoprotein. Mol Cell Biol. 1985 Jun;5(6):1442–1448. doi: 10.1128/mcb.5.6.1442. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Alt F. W., Bothwell A. L., Knapp M., Siden E., Mather E., Koshland M., Baltimore D. Synthesis of secreted and membrane-bound immunoglobulin mu heavy chains is directed by mRNAs that differ at their 3' ends. Cell. 1980 Jun;20(2):293–301. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(80)90615-7. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Arias C., Bell J. R., Lenches E. M., Strauss E. G., Strauss J. H. Sequence analysis of two mutants of Sindbis virus defective in the intracellular transport of their glycoproteins. J Mol Biol. 1983 Jul 25;168(1):87–102. doi: 10.1016/s0022-2836(83)80324-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Boeke J. D., Model P. A prokaryotic membrane anchor sequence: carboxyl terminus of bacteriophage f1 gene III protein retains it in the membrane. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1982 Sep;79(17):5200–5204. doi: 10.1073/pnas.79.17.5200. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Caillet-Fauquet P., Maenhaut-Michel G., Radman M. SOS mutator effect in E. coli mutants deficient in mismatch correction. EMBO J. 1984 Apr;3(4):707–712. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1984.tb01873.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Carter P. J., Winter G., Wilkinson A. J., Fersht A. R. The use of double mutants to detect structural changes in the active site of the tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase (Bacillus stearothermophilus). Cell. 1984 Oct;38(3):835–840. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(84)90278-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Compans R. W., Klenk H. D., Caliguiri L. A., Choppin P. W. Influenza virus proteins. I. Analysis of polypeptides of the virion and identification of spike glycoproteins. Virology. 1970 Dec;42(4):880–889. doi: 10.1016/0042-6822(70)90337-5. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Davis N. G., Boeke J. D., Model P. Fine structure of a membrane anchor domain. J Mol Biol. 1985 Jan 5;181(1):111–121. doi: 10.1016/0022-2836(85)90329-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Dente L., Cesareni G., Cortese R. pEMBL: a new family of single stranded plasmids. Nucleic Acids Res. 1983 Mar 25;11(6):1645–1655. doi: 10.1093/nar/11.6.1645. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Dotto G. P., Horiuchi K. Replication of a plasmid containing two origins of bacteriophage. J Mol Biol. 1981 Nov 25;153(1):169–176. doi: 10.1016/0022-2836(81)90532-5. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Doyle C., Roth M. G., Sambrook J., Gething M. J. Mutations in the cytoplasmic domain of the influenza virus hemagglutinin affect different stages of intracellular transport. J Cell Biol. 1985 Mar;100(3):704–714. doi: 10.1083/jcb.100.3.704. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Garoff H., Frischauf A. M., Simons K., Lehrach H., Delius H. Nucleotide sequence of cdna coding for Semliki Forest virus membrane glycoproteins. Nature. 1980 Nov 20;288(5788):236–241. doi: 10.1038/288236a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Garoff H., Kondor-Koch C., Pettersson R., Burke B. Expression of Semliki Forest virus proteins from cloned complementary DNA. II. The membrane-spanning glycoprotein E2 is transported to the cell surface without its normal cytoplasmic domain. J Cell Biol. 1983 Sep;97(3):652–658. doi: 10.1083/jcb.97.3.652. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Garoff H., Söderlund H. The amphiphilic membrane glycoproteins of Semliki Forest virus are attached to the lipid bilayer by their COOH-terminal ends. J Mol Biol. 1978 Sep 25;124(3):535–549. doi: 10.1016/0022-2836(78)90186-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Garoff H. Using recombinant DNA techniques to study protein targeting in the eucaryotic cell. Annu Rev Cell Biol. 1985;1:403–445. doi: 10.1146/annurev.cb.01.110185.002155. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Gething M. J., Sambrook J. Construction of influenza haemagglutinin genes that code for intracellular and secreted forms of the protein. Nature. 1982 Dec 16;300(5893):598–603. doi: 10.1038/300598a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Guan J. L., Rose J. K. Conversion of a secretory protein into a transmembrane protein results in its transport to the Golgi complex but not to the cell surface. Cell. 1984 Jul;37(3):779–787. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(84)90413-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Guild B. C., Strominger J. L. Human and murine class I MHC antigens share conserved serine 335, the site of HLA phosphorylation in vivo. J Biol Chem. 1984 Jul 25;259(14):9235–9240. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Hanahan D. Studies on transformation of Escherichia coli with plasmids. J Mol Biol. 1983 Jun 5;166(4):557–580. doi: 10.1016/s0022-2836(83)80284-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Hashimoto K., Erdei S., Keränen S., Saraste J., Käriäinen L. Evidence for a separate signal sequence for the carboxy-terminal envelope glycoprotein E1 of Semliki forest virus. J Virol. 1981 Apr;38(1):34–40. doi: 10.1128/jvi.38.1.34-40.1981. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Henning R., Milner R. J., Reske K., Cunningham B. A., Edelman G. M. Subunit structure, cell surface orientation, and partial amino-acid sequences of murine histocompatibility antigens. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1976 Jan;73(1):118–122. doi: 10.1073/pnas.73.1.118. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  22. Holland T. C., Homa F. L., Marlin S. D., Levine M., Glorioso J. Herpes simplex virus type 1 glycoprotein C-negative mutants exhibit multiple phenotypes, including secretion of truncated glycoproteins. J Virol. 1984 Nov;52(2):566–574. doi: 10.1128/jvi.52.2.566-574.1984. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  23. Hortsch M., Meyer D. I. Pushing the signal hypothesis: what are the limits? Biol Cell. 1984;52(1 Pt A):1–8. doi: 10.1111/j.1768-322x.1985.tb00319.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  24. Katz F. N., Rothman J. E., Lingappa V. R., Blobel G., Lodish H. F. Membrane assembly in vitro: synthesis, glycosylation, and asymmetric insertion of a transmembrane protein. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1977 Aug;74(8):3278–3282. doi: 10.1073/pnas.74.8.3278. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  25. Kondor-Koch C., Burke B., Garoff H. Expression of Semliki Forest virus proteins from cloned complementary DNA. I. The fusion activity of the spike glycoprotein. J Cell Biol. 1983 Sep;97(3):644–651. doi: 10.1083/jcb.97.3.644. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  26. Kramer W., Drutsa V., Jansen H. W., Kramer B., Pflugfelder M., Fritz H. J. The gapped duplex DNA approach to oligonucleotide-directed mutation construction. Nucleic Acids Res. 1984 Dec 21;12(24):9441–9456. doi: 10.1093/nar/12.24.9441. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  27. Kramer W., Schughart K., Fritz H. J. Directed mutagenesis of DNA cloned in filamentous phage: influence of hemimethylated GATC sites on marker recovery from restriction fragments. Nucleic Acids Res. 1982 Oct 25;10(20):6475–6485. doi: 10.1093/nar/10.20.6475. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  28. Kress M., Cosman D., Khoury G., Jay G. Secretion of a transplantation-related antigen. Cell. 1983 Aug;34(1):189–196. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(83)90149-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  29. Kyte J., Doolittle R. F. A simple method for displaying the hydropathic character of a protein. J Mol Biol. 1982 May 5;157(1):105–132. doi: 10.1016/0022-2836(82)90515-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  30. Lehrman M. A., Schneider W. J., Südhof T. C., Brown M. S., Goldstein J. L., Russell D. W. Mutation in LDL receptor: Alu-Alu recombination deletes exons encoding transmembrane and cytoplasmic domains. Science. 1985 Jan 11;227(4683):140–146. doi: 10.1126/science.3155573. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  31. Lingappa V. R., Katz F. N., Lodish H. F., Blobel G. A signal sequence for the insertion of a transmembrane glycoprotein. Similarities to the signals of secretory proteins in primary structure and function. J Biol Chem. 1978 Dec 25;253(24):8667–8670. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  32. Liscum L., Finer-Moore J., Stroud R. M., Luskey K. L., Brown M. S., Goldstein J. L. Domain structure of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase, a glycoprotein of the endoplasmic reticulum. J Biol Chem. 1985 Jan 10;260(1):522–530. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  33. Marsh M., Bolzau E., White J., Helenius A. Interactions of Semliki Forest virus spike glycoprotein rosettes and vesicles with cultured cells. J Cell Biol. 1983 Feb;96(2):455–461. doi: 10.1083/jcb.96.2.455. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  34. Matlin K. S., Simons K. Sorting of an apical plasma membrane glycoprotein occurs before it reaches the cell surface in cultured epithelial cells. J Cell Biol. 1984 Dec;99(6):2131–2139. doi: 10.1083/jcb.99.6.2131. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  35. McQueen N. L., Nayak D. P., Jones L. V., Compans R. W. Chimeric influenza virus hemagglutinin containing either the NH2 terminus or the COOH terminus of G protein of vesicular stomatitis virus is defective in transport to the cell surface. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1984 Jan;81(2):395–399. doi: 10.1073/pnas.81.2.395. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  36. Messing J., Gronenborn B., Müller-Hill B., Hans Hopschneider P. Filamentous coliphage M13 as a cloning vehicle: insertion of a HindII fragment of the lac regulatory region in M13 replicative form in vitro. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1977 Sep;74(9):3642–3646. doi: 10.1073/pnas.74.9.3642. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  37. Messing J. New M13 vectors for cloning. Methods Enzymol. 1983;101:20–78. doi: 10.1016/0076-6879(83)01005-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  38. Pettersson R. F., Lundström K., Chattopadhyaya J. B., Josephson S., Philipson L., Käriäinen L., Palva I. Chemical synthesis and molecular cloning of a STOP oligonucleotide encoding an UGA translation terminator in all three reading frames. Gene. 1983 Sep;24(1):15–27. doi: 10.1016/0378-1119(83)90127-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  39. Rice C. M., Bell J. R., Hunkapiller M. W., Strauss E. G., Strauss J. H. Isolation and characterization of the hydrophobic COOH-terminal domains of the sindbis virion glycoproteins. J Mol Biol. 1982 Jan 15;154(2):355–378. doi: 10.1016/0022-2836(82)90069-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  40. Riedel H. Different membrane anchors allow the Semliki Forest virus spike subunit E2 to reach the cell surface. J Virol. 1985 Apr;54(1):224–228. doi: 10.1128/jvi.54.1.224-228.1985. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  41. Rogers J., Early P., Carter C., Calame K., Bond M., Hood L., Wall R. Two mRNAs with different 3' ends encode membrane-bound and secreted forms of immunoglobulin mu chain. Cell. 1980 Jun;20(2):303–312. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(80)90616-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  42. Rose J. K., Bergmann J. E. Altered cytoplasmic domains affect intracellular transport of the vesicular stomatitis virus glycoprotein. Cell. 1983 Sep;34(2):513–524. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(83)90384-7. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  43. Rose J. K., Bergmann J. E. Expression from cloned cDNA of cell-surface secreted forms of the glycoprotein of vesicular stomatitis virus in eucaryotic cells. Cell. 1982 Oct;30(3):753–762. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(82)90280-x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  44. Sabatini D. D., Kreibich G., Morimoto T., Adesnik M. Mechanisms for the incorporation of proteins in membranes and organelles. J Cell Biol. 1982 Jan;92(1):1–22. doi: 10.1083/jcb.92.1.1. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  45. Simons K., Warren G. Semliki Forest virus: a probe for membrane traffic in the animal cell. Adv Protein Chem. 1984;36:79–132. doi: 10.1016/S0065-3233(08)60296-X. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  46. Thomas M. L., Barclay A. N., Gagnon J., Williams A. F. Evidence from cDNA clones that the rat leukocyte-common antigen (T200) spans the lipid bilayer and contains a cytoplasmic domain of 80,000 Mr. Cell. 1985 May;41(1):83–93. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(85)90063-7. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  47. Timm B., Kondor-Koch C., Lehrach H., Riedel H., Edström J. E., Garoff H. Expression of viral membrane proteins from cloned cDNA by microinjection into eukaryotic cell nuclei. Methods Enzymol. 1983;96:496–511. doi: 10.1016/s0076-6879(83)96043-3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  48. White J., Kielian M., Helenius A. Membrane fusion proteins of enveloped animal viruses. Q Rev Biophys. 1983 May;16(2):151–195. doi: 10.1017/s0033583500005072. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  49. Wills J. W., Srinivas R. V., Hunter E. Mutations of the Rous sarcoma virus env gene that affect the transport and subcellular location of the glycoprotein products. J Cell Biol. 1984 Dec;99(6):2011–2023. doi: 10.1083/jcb.99.6.2011. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  50. Yost C. S., Hedgpeth J., Lingappa V. R. A stop transfer sequence confers predictable transmembrane orientation to a previously secreted protein in cell-free systems. Cell. 1983 Oct;34(3):759–766. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(83)90532-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  51. Zoller M. J., Smith M. Oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis of DNA fragments cloned into M13 vectors. Methods Enzymol. 1983;100:468–500. doi: 10.1016/0076-6879(83)00074-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  52. Zuniga M. C., Malissen B., McMillan M., Brayton P. R., Clark S. S., Forman J., Hood L. Expression and function of transplantation antigens with altered or deleted cytoplasmic domains. Cell. 1983 Sep;34(2):535–544. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(83)90386-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from The Journal of Cell Biology are provided here courtesy of The Rockefeller University Press

RESOURCES