The intracellular position of lysosomes is critical for cell metabolism and signaling. Kesisova et al discovered a membrane-associated septin GTPase scaffold of dynein-dynactin that promotes retrograde traffic and perinuclear lysosome clustering at steady state and in response to oxidative stress. Condensed title: A septin GTPase mechanism of dynein-driven traffic Abbreviations: amino acids, aa; dynein heavy chain, DHC; dynein intermediate chain, DIC, dynein light intermediate chain, DLIC; early endosome antigen 1, EEA1; early sorting complex required for transport, ESCRT; G-domain, GTPase domain; guanosine-5′-triphosphate, GTP; guanosine diphosphate, GDP; guanosine 5′-O-[γ-thio]triphosphate, GTPγS; JNK-interaction protein-1, JIP-1; lysosomal associated membrane protein 1, LAMP1; late endosomal/lysosomal adaptor, MAPK and mTOR activator 4, LAMTOR4; multivesicular body, MVB; N-terminal extension, NTE; reactive oxygen species, ROS; septin, SEPT; tumor susceptibility gene 101, TSG101.
AbstractThe metabolic and signaling functions of lysosomes depend on their intracellular positioning and trafficking, but the underlying mechanisms are little understood. Here, we have discovered a novel septin GTPase-based mechanism for retrograde lysosome transport. We found that septin 9 (SEPT9) associates with lysosomes, promoting the perinuclear localization of lysosomes in a Rab7-independent manner. SEPT9 targeting to mitochondria and peroxisomes is sufficient to recruit dynein and cause perinuclear clustering. We show that SEPT9 interacts with both dynein and dynactin through its GTPase domain and N-terminal extension, respectively. Strikingly, SEPT9 associates preferentially with the dynein intermediate chain (DIC) in its GDP-bound state, which favors dimerization and assembly into septin multimers. In response to oxidative cell stress induced by arsenite, SEPT9 localization to lysosomes is enhanced, promoting the perinuclear clustering of lysosomes. We posit that septins function as GDP-activated scaffolds for the cooperative assembly of dynein-dynactin, providing an alternative mechanism of retrograde lysosome transport at steady state and during cellular adaptation to stress. barriers, which control protein localization in a spatiotemporal specific manner (Bridges and Gladfelter, 2015;Caudron and Barral, 2009). In the endocytic pathway, septins associate preferentially with endolysosomes that are enriched with phosphatidylinositol 3,5-bisphosphate and Rab7 (Dolat and Spiliotis, 2016). Moreover, septins are critical for lysosome merging with macropinosomes and Shigella bacteria undergoing autophagy (Dolat and Spiliotis, 2016;Krokowski et al., 2018). In a proteomic study of the dynein interactome, septins were identified as potential binding partners of DIC, DLIC and the dynein adaptor BiCD2 (Redwine et al., 2017).Here, we report that membrane-associated septins provide a novel GDP-activated mechanism for the retrograde dynein-driven transport of lysosomes.