-
Natural sciences
- Plant cell and molecular biology
Membrane trafficking occurs with the help of adaptor proteins, which can be either monomeric or part of multimeric protein complexes. In plants, there are six multimeric adaptor complexes, Adaptor Protein (AP) complex 1 to 5 and the TPLATE complex. These complexes function at various endomembrane locations and are responsible for the vesicle-dependent trafficking of membrane proteins. The aim of this project is to identify the cargoes of the various AP complexes using affinity purification followed by mass spectrometry. Stress conditions, such as temperature stress, are expected to lead to profound changes in the plasma membrane proteome and this project therefore also aims to visualize the changes in the composition of the AP-2 dependent endocytic vesicles during elevated temperature stress, given that AP-2 is the adaptor protein complex which operates at the plasma membrane. The cargo proteins that we identify via mass spectrometry will be confirmed via an independent approach, using live cell fluorescence based co-localization of the cargo proteins and the AP-containing vesicles following vesicle purification.