The ATP binding cassette (ABC) transporter superfamily comprises a large family of transmembrane proteins that transport a variety of substrates across membranes coupled with ATP hydrolysis. 1,2) This superfamily is related to the drug resistance of cancer cells and pathogens, immune responses and some congenital disorders. [3][4][5] Human ABC transporters have been classified into seven subfamilies (A-G) based on the sequences and organizations of their ATP binding domains.6,7) Subfamily B consists of half-and fulltype transporters, well-characterized members being transporter associated with antigen processing (TAP) 8) and multidrug resistance (MDR), 9) respectively. The members of this subfamily transport a variety of cationic substrates of different sizes, from iron to antibiotics, anti-tumor compounds and antigenic polypeptides.TAPL (TAP-like; ABCB9) is strongly homologous to TAP1 and TAP2; 60 and 62%, respectively, of their amino acid residues are conserved.10) From such similarity, it is expected that a potential function of TAPL could be associated with peptide transport like in the case of TAP. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that TAPL is highly conserved in rodents and man (95% identity in amino acid residues), compared with TAP1 and TAP2 (75% and 77% identity, respectively), suggesting that the evolutional rate of TAPL was much slower than those of TAP1 and TAP2, although TAPL could have diverged from an ancestor of TAP.11) Recently we found the novel splicing isoforms with different carboxyl-terminal sequences in rat and human, 12,13) although the major isoform was originally reported one.Most of the half-type ABC transporters are localized to intracellular organelle membranes and function as either homodimers or heterodimers. [14][15][16] In this study we examined the cellular distributions of TAPL and its family members (TAP1 and TAP2), and their mutual interactions by monitoring the fluorescence derived from fluorescent proteins fused downstream of the carboxyl terminal cytoplasmic ABC region or of the amino terminal transmembrane region. Although TAP1 and TAP2 form a heterodimer, [17][18][19][20] and TAPL, TAP1 and TAP2 show strong sequence similarity to each other, 11) it has not been determined whether TAPL forms a heterodimer or a homodimer.
MATERIALS AND METHODSCell Culture, Transfection and Preparation of Total RNA Cells were grown in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium (GIBCO BRL) containing 7% (v/v) fetal bovine serum (JRH Bioscience). COS-1 cells (ATCC) 21) were transfected by the DEAE-dextran method as described previously.22) HEK-293 cells (2-5ϫ10 5 cells/F 60 mm dish) (RIKEN Cell Bank) 23) were transfected by the cationic lipid method using 2.5 mg/dish plasmid DNA with UltraFector or SuperFector (B-bridge), as recommended by the manufacturer. Cells were further grown for 24 h, and then subjected to Western blotting or microscopic observation.Total RNA was extracted with Isogen (Wako Chemicals) 24) from HEK-293 cells cultured in two F10 cm dishes. First strand cDNA was synthesized from 5 m...