Photoreceptor Compartment-Specific TULP1 Interactomes

Abstract

Photoreceptors are highly compartmentalized cells with large amounts of proteins synthesized in the inner segment (IS) and transported to the outer segment (OS) and synaptic terminal. Tulp1 is a photoreceptor-specific protein localized to the IS and synapse. In the absence of Tulp1, sev-eral OS-specific proteins are mislocalized and synaptic vesicle recycling is impaired. To better understand the involvement of Tulp1 in protein trafficking, our approach was to physically iso-late Tulp1-containing photoreceptor compartments by serial tangential sectioning of retinas and to identify compartment-specific Tulp1 binding partners by immunoprecipitation followed by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Our results indicate that Tulp1 has two dis-tinct interactomes. We report the identification of: 1) an IS-specific interaction between Tulp1 and the motor protein Kinesin family member 3a (Kif3a), 2) a synaptic-specific interaction be-tween Tulp1 and the scaffold protein Ribeye, and 3) an interaction between Tulp1 and the cyto-skeletal protein Microtubule-associated protein 1B (MAP1B) in both compartments. Immuno-localization studies in the wild-type retina indicate that Tulp1 and its binding partners co-localize to their respective compartments. Our observations are compatible with Tulp1 functioning in protein trafficking in multiple photoreceptor compartments, likely as an adapter molecule linking vesicles to molecular motors and the cytoskeletal scaffold.