Polypeptide-binding proteins mediate completion of co-translational protein translocation into the mammalian endoplasmic reticulum.

The first step in the secretion of most mammalian proteins is their transport into the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Transport of pre-secretory proteins into the mammalian ER requires signal peptides in the precursor proteins and a protein translocase in the ER membrane. In addition, hitherto unidentified lumenal ER proteins have been shown to be required for vectorial protein translocation. This requirement was confirmed in this study by using proteoliposomes that were made from microsomal detergent extracts and contained either low or high concentrations of lumenal ER proteins. Furthermore, immunoglobulin-heavy-chain-binding protein (BiP) was shown to be able to substitute for the full set of lumenal proteins and, in the case of biotinylated precursor proteins, avidin was found to be able to substitute for lumenal proteins. Thus, the polypeptide-chain-binding protein BiP was identified as one lumenal protein that is involved in efficient vectorial protein translocation into the mammalian ER.