An endosome-to-plasma membrane pathway involved in trafficking of a mutant plasma membrane ATPase in yeast.

The plasma membrane ATPase, encoded by PMA1, is delivered to the cell surface via the secretory pathway. Previously, we characterized a temperature-sensitive pma1 mutant in which newly synthesized Pma1-7 is not delivered to the plasma membrane but is mislocalized instead to the vacuole at 37 degrees C. Several vps mutants, which are defective in vacuolar protein sorting, suppress targeting-defective pma1 by allowing mutant Pma1 to move once again to the plasma membrane. In this study, we have analyzed trafficking in the endosomal system by monitoring the movement of Pma1-7 in vps36, vps1, and vps8 mutants. Upon induction of expression, mutant Pma1 accumulates in the prevacuolar compartment in vps36 cells. After chase, a fraction of newly synthesized Pma1-7 is delivered to the plasma membrane. In both vps1 and vps8 cells, newly synthesized mutant Pma1 appears in small punctate structures before arrival at the cell surface. Nevertheless, biosynthetic membrane traffic appears to follow different routes in vps8 and vps1: the vacuolar protein-sorting receptor Vps10p is stable in vps8 but not in vps1. Furthermore, a defect in endocytic delivery to the vacuole was revealed in vps8 (and vps36) but not vps1 by endocytosis of the bulk membrane marker FM 4-64. Moreover, in vps8 cells, there is defective down-regulation from the cell surface of the mating receptor Ste3, consistent with persistent receptor recycling from an endosomal compartment to the plasma membrane. These data support a model in which mutant Pma1 is diverted from the Golgi to the surface in vps1 cells. We hypothesize that in vps8 and vps36, in contrast to vps1, mutant Pma1 moves to the surface via endosomal intermediates, implicating an endosome-to-surface traffic pathway.