Mutations in LRRK2 linked to Parkinson disease sequester Rab8a to damaged lysosomes and regulate transferrin-mediated iron uptake in microglia

Mutations in leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) cause autosomal dominant Parkinson disease (PD), while polymorphic LRRK2 variants are associated with sporadic PD. PD-linked mutations increase LRRK2 kinase activity and induce neurotoxicity in vitro and in vivo. The small GTPase Rab8a is a LRRK2 kinase substrate and is involved in receptor-mediated recycling and endocytic trafficking of transferrin, but the effect of PD-linked LRRK2 mutations on the function of Rab8a is poorly understood. Here, we show that gain-of-function mutations in LRRK2 induce sequestration of endogenous Rab8a to lysosomes in overexpression cell models, while pharmacological inhibition of LRRK2 kinase activity reverses this phenotype. Furthermore, we show that LRRK2 mutations drive association of endocytosed transferrin with Rab8a-positive lysosomes. LRRK2 has been nominated as an integral part of cellular responses downstream of proinflammatory signals and is activated in microglia in postmortem PD tissue. Here, we show that iPSC-derived microglia from patients carrying the most common LRRK2 mutation, G2019S, mistraffic transferrin to lysosomes proximal to the nucleus in proinflammatory conditions. Furthermore, G2019S knock-in mice show a significant increase in iron deposition in microglia following intrastriatal LPS injection compared to wild-type mice, accompanied by striatal accumulation of ferritin. Our data support a role of LRRK2 in modulating iron uptake and storage in response to proinflammatory stimuli in microglia

Mechanisms and concepts paving the way towards a complete transport cycle of plant vacuolar sorting receptors.

Delivery of proteins to the lytic vacuole in plants is a complex cascade of selective interactions that specifically excludes residents of the endoplasmic reticulum and secreted proteins. Vacuolar transport must be highly efficient to avoid mistargeting of hydrolytic enzymes to locations where they could be harmful. While plant vacuolar sorting signals have been well described for two decades, it is only during the last 5 years that a critical mass of data was gathered that begins to reveal how vacuolar sorting receptors (VSRs) may complete a full transport cycle. Yet, the field is far from reaching a consensus regarding the organelles that could be involved in vacuolar sorting, their potential biogenesis, and the ultimate recycling of membranes and protein machinery that maintain this pathway. This review will highlight the important landmarks in our understanding of VSR function and compare recent transport models that have been proposed so that an emerging picture of plant vacuolar sorting mechanisms can be drawn

Golgi-dependent transport of vacuolar sorting receptors is regulated by COPII, AP1, and AP4 protein complexes in tobacco.

The cycling of vacuolar sorting receptors (VSRs) between early and late secretory pathway compartments is regulated by signals in the cytosolic tail, but the exact pathway is controversial. Here, we show that receptor targeting in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) initially involves a canonical coat protein complex II-dependent endoplasmic reticulum-to-Golgi bulk flow route and that VSR-ligand interactions in the cis-Golgi play an important role in vacuolar sorting. We also show that a conserved Glu is required but not sufficient for rate-limiting YXX-mediated receptor trafficking. Protein-protein interaction studies show that the VSR tail interacts with the μ-subunits of plant or mammalian clathrin adaptor complex AP1 and plant AP4 but not that of plant and mammalian AP2. Mutants causing a detour of full-length receptors via the cell surface invariantly cause the secretion of VSR ligands. Therefore, we propose that cycling via the plasma membrane is unlikely to play a role in biosynthetic vacuolar sorting under normal physiological conditions and that the conserved Ile-Met motif is mainly used to recover mistargeted receptors. This occurs via a fundamentally different pathway from the prevacuolar compartment that does not mediate recycling. The role of clathrin and clathrin-independent pathways in vacuolar targeting is discussed

The Parkinson’s disease protein LRRK2 interacts with the GARP complex to promote retrograde transport to the trans-Golgi network

Mutations in Leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) cause Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, the precise function of LRRK2 remains unclear. We report an interaction between LRRK2 and VPS52, a subunit of the Golgi-associated retrograde protein (GARP) complex that identifies a function of LRRK2 in regulating membrane fusion at the trans-Golgi network (TGN). At the TGN, LRRK2 further interacts with the Golgi SNAREs VAMP4 and Syntaxin-6 and acts as a scaffolding platform that stabilizes the GARP-SNAREs complex formation. Therefore, LRRK2 influences both retrograde and post-Golgi trafficking pathways in a manner dependent on its GTP binding and kinase activity. This action is exaggerated by mutations associated with Parkinson’s disease and can be blocked by kinase inhibitors. Disruption of GARP sensitizes dopamine neurons to mutant LRRK2 toxicity in C. elegans, showing that these pathways are interlinked in vivo and suggesting a link in PD

Mutations in Auxilin cause parkinsonism via impaired clathrin-mediated trafficking at the Golgi apparatus and synapse

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative motor disorder characterized in part by neuropathological lesions in the nigrostriatal pathway. While most cases of PD are sporadic in nature, several inherited monogenic syndromes exist that overlap clinically and pathologically with sporadic PD. Of these, loss of function mutations in DNAJC6, which encodes the protein Auxilin, cause an aggressive form of juvenile onset PD. Auxilin and its homologues are known to play a role in clathrin-mediated trafficking, which is crucial for cellular function in all eukaryotes and plays a specialized role in synaptic transmission in higher organisms. Auxilin is the major neuronal uncoating protein for clathrin-coated vesicles required for delivery of cargo from the plasma membrane and trans-Golgi network to intracellular destinations. However, how mutations in Auxilin cause PD is currently not understood. To address this problem, we generated a novel mouse model carrying an endogenous pathogenic Auxilin mutation. When bred to homozygosity, this mutation induced neurological phenotypes that phenocopy clinical features observed in patients, including motor impairments reminiscent of bradykinesia and gait problems. Mapping the interactome of Auxilin confirmed clathrin and synaptic clathrin adaptor protein interactions and also identified novel Golgi-resident interactors. Critically, all tested pathogenic mutations in Auxilin retained clathrin adaptor protein binding but lost interaction with clathrin itself. These observations describe a mechanism by which impaired clathrin-mediated trafficking in R857G Auxilin mice, both at the Golgi and the synapse, results in neuropathological lesions in the nigrostriatal pathway. Collectively, these results provide novel insights for PD pathogenesis in Auxilin mutation carriers, reinforcing a key role for clathrin-mediated trafficking in PD, and expand our understanding of the cellular function of Auxilin