Sugar-nucleotide-binding and autoglycosylating polypeptide(s) from nasturtium fruit: biochemical capacities and potential functions

Polypeptide assemblies cross-linked by S-S bonds (molecular mass > 200 kDa) and single polypeptides folded with internal S-S cross-links (< 41 kDa) have been detected by SDS/PAGE in particulate membranes and soluble extracts of developing cotyledons of nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus L.). When first prepared from fruit homogenates, these polypeptides were found to bind reversibly to UDP-Gal (labelled with [C-14]Gal or [H-3]uridine), and to co-precipitate specifically with added xyloglucan from solutions made with 67% ethanol. Initially, the bound UDP-[C-14]Gal could be replaced (bumped) by adding excess UDP, or exchanged (chased) with UDP-Gal, -Glc, -Man or -Xyl. However, this capacity for turnover was lost during incubation in reaction media, or during SDS/PAGE under reducing conditions, even as the glycone moiety was conserved by autoglycosylation to form a stable 41 kDa polypeptide. Polyclonal antibodies raised to a similar product purified from Arabidopsis bound to all the labelled nasturtium polypeptides in immunoblotting tests. The antibodies also inhibited the binding of nasturtium polypeptides to UDP-Gal, the uptake of UDP-[C-14]Gal into intact nasturtium membrane vesicles and the incorporation of [C-14]Gal into nascent xyloglucan within these vesicles. This is the first direct evidence that these polypeptides facilitate the channelling of UDP-activated sugars from the cytoplasm through Golgi vesicle membranes to lumenal sites, where they can be used as substrates for glycosyltransferases to synthesize products such as xyloglucan.