Role of Golgi derived clathrin coated vesicles in the transport of calsequestrin to the sarcoplasmic reticulum of developing myotubes

The sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) is the major intracellular calcium sequestering organelle in skeletal and heart muscle. Calsequestrin (CSQ) is a glycoprotein with a molecular weight of 42,000. This protein is located in the lumen of the SR and it binds Ca2+ to maintain the concentration of this cation in the lumen at 10/sup /minus/3/M. Highly purified coated vesicles (CVs) were isolated from chick muscle and a Western blot using polyclonal anti-CSQ revealed the presence of CSQ within the CVs. Another major protein in the SR, the Ca2+-ATPase, was not contained in CVs suggesting different routes of insertion into the SR. Cultured chick myotubes were labelled with Trans35S-label contain [35S]-methionine and [35S]-cysteine to follow the transport of CSQ. Labelled CSQ remained high in the CVs until after 45 minutes of chase, then declined. The amount of labelled CSQ in the SR continued to rise over the chase period. No CSQ was secreted. All the CSQ in CVs and SR was sensitive to the activity of endoglycosidase H, and a significant fraction also bound wheat germ agglutinin. A small amount of CSQ was also co-transported with the muscle protein acetylcholinesterase within CVs. Non-secreted forms of acetylcholinesterase had the same carbohydrate structure as CSQ and were shown to be degraded in the SR