The early vertebrate Danio rerio Mr 46000 mannose-6-phosphate receptor: biochemical and functional characterisation

Mannose-6-phosphate receptors (MPRs) have been identified in a wide range of species from humans to invertebrates such as molluscs. A characteristic of all MPRs is their common property to recognize mannose-6-phosphate residues that are labelling lysosomal enzymes and to mediate their targeting to lysosomes in mammalian cells by the corresponding receptor proteins. We present here the analysis of full-length sequences for MPR 46 from zebrafish (Danio rerio) and its functional analysis. This is the first non-mammalian MPR 46 to be characterised. The amino acid sequences of the zebrafish MPR 46 displays 70% similarity to the human MPR 46 protein. In particular, all essential cysteine residues, the transmembrane domain as well as the cytoplasmic tail residues harbouring the signals for endocytosis and Golgi-localizing, γ-ear-containing, ARF-binding protein (GGA)-mediated sorting at the trans-Golgi network, are highly conserved. The zebrafish MPR 46 has the arginine residue known to be essential for mannose-6-phosphate binding and other additional characteristic residues of the mannose-6-phosphate ligand-binding pocket. Like the mammalian MPR 46, zebrafish MPR 46 binds to the multimeric mannose-6-phosphate ligand phosphomannan and can rescue the missorting of lysosomal enzymes in mammalian MPR-deficient cells. The conserved C-terminal acidic dileucine motif (DxxLL) in the cytoplasmic domain of zebrafish MPR 46 essential for the interaction of the GGAs with the receptor domains interacts with the human GGA1-VHS domain. Interestingly, the serine residue suggested to regulate the interaction between the tail and the GGAs in a phosphorylation-dependent manner is substituted by a proline residue in fish.