Assembly and sorting of the tonoplast potassium channel AtTPK1 and its turnover by internalization into the vacuole.

The assembly, sorting signals and turnover of the tonoplast potassium channel AtTPK1 of Arabidopsis thaliana were studied. We used transgenic Arabidopsis expressing a TPK1-GFP fusion or protoplasts transiently transformed with chimeric constructs based on domain exchange between TPK1 and TPK4, the only TPK family member not located at the tonoplast. The results show that TPK1-GFP is a dimer and that the newly-synthesized polypeptides transiently interact with a thus far unidentified 20 kD polypeptide. A subset of the TPK1-TPK4 chimeras were unable to assemble correctly and these remained located in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) where they interacted with the BiP chaperone. Therefore, TPK1 must assemble correctly to pass ER quality control. Substitution of the cytosolic C- terminus of TPK4 with the corresponding domain of TPK1 was sufficient to allow tonoplast delivery, indicating that this domain contains tonoplast sorting information. Pulse-chase labeling indicated that TPK1-GFP has a half-life of at least 24 hours. Turnover of the fusion protein involves internalization into the vacuole where the GFP domain is released. This indicates a possible mechanism for the turnover of tonoplast proteins.