Specific cross-linking of the proline isomerase cyclophilin to a non- proline-containing peptide

JA McNew, K Sykes and JM Goodman

Department of Pharmacology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas 75235.

A peptide corresponding to an efficient peroxisomal targeting sequence, the carboxy terminal 12 amino acids of PMP20 from Candida boidinii, was employed as an affinity ligand to search for a peroxisomal targeting receptor. Two proteins from yeast extracts with apparent molecular masses of 20 and 80 kDa were detected by chemical cross-linking to radioiodinated peptide. Both proteins were present in cytosolic supernatants. The 20-kDa species did not cross-link to a control peptide with reversed sequence, whereas the 80-kDa protein cross-linked to both peptides. The cross-linking assay was used to purify the 20-kDa protein from Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Partial protein sequencing identified this protein as cyclophilin, the product of the CYP1 gene. This protein, a peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerase, is the yeast homologue of the protein that mediates the immunosuppressant effects of the drug cyclosporin A (CsA). Cross-linking of peptide to cyclophilin was inhibited by CsA. The cross-linking of cyclophilin to the PMP20- derived peptide was unanticipated because the peptide contains no prolines. The CYP1-encoded protein was not required to target proteins to peroxisomes because this organelle appeared to be assembled normally in a CYP1-disrupted strain. Furthermore, the final three amino acids of the peptide, which are critical for peroxisomal sorting, were not required for cross-linking to cyclophilin. We conclude that either cyclophilin is playing a nonessential facilitating role in peroxisomal targeting or that the interaction of the targeting peptide to cyclophilin is mimicking an interaction with an unidentified substrate or effector of cyclophilin.

Volume 4, Issue 2, pp. 223-232, 02/01/1993
Copyright © 1993 by The American Society for Cell Biology

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