Human p80-coilin is targeted to sphere organelles in the amphibian germinal vesicle.

Cultured vertebrate cells often display one or more coiled bodies in their nuclei. These are spherical structures approximately 0.5-1.0 micron in diameter that contain high concentrations of small nuclear ribonucleoproteins (snRNPs); they are distinct from nuclear speckles and nucleoli, the other major sites of snRNP concentration. Coiled bodies in human cells contain a unique protein, p80-coilin, that has an M(r) = 80 kDa. Cloned p80-coilin cDNA encodes 576 amino acids with a calculated molecular weight of 62.6 kDa. To determine which of several snRNP-containing structures in the amphibian germinal vesicle (GV) might be the homologue of coiled bodies, we injected myc-tagged transcripts of full-length human p80-coilin into the cytoplasm of Xenopus oocytes and followed the fate of the translated proteins with an antibody specific for the tag. Western blots of GV proteins showed rapid appearance of both full-length and truncated p80-coilin in the nucleus. Immunofluorescent staining of spread GV contents demonstrated specific uptake of p80-coilin by the sphere organelle within 1 h after injection. Similar experiments were performed with a series of deletion constructs that lacked progressively longer segments from the carboxy terminus. A construct that contained only the first 102 amino acids (18% of the molecule) was specifically targeted to the sphere organelle. Conversely, a construct lacking the first 92 amino acids failed to localize, although it was imported into the GV. Thus, a relatively short region at the amino terminus of human p80-coilin is both necessary and sufficient for localization in the sphere organelle. Sphere organelles in the GV and coiled bodies in somatic nuclei are clearly related in composition. We suggest that they are homologous organelles with similar functions in preassembly and sorting of RNA processing components. Differences in their composition suggest functional specialization in the two cell types.