Precursor sequence, processing, and urothelium-specific expression of a major 15-kDa protein subunit of asymmetric unit membrane.

Abstract The asymmetric unit membrane (AUM) is a highly specialized biomembrane elaborated by terminally differentiated urothelial cells. It contains quasi-crystalline arrays of 12-nm protein particles each of which is composed of six dumbbell-shaped subdomains. In this paper we describe the precursor sequence, processing and in vitro membrane insertion properties of bovine uroplakin II (UPII), a 15-kDa major protein component of AUM. The cDNA-deduced amino acid sequence revealed that UPII is synthesized as a precursor protein containing a cleavable signal peptide of approximately 26 amino acids, a long pro-sequence of approximately 59 residues harboring three potential N-glycosylation sites, and the mature polypeptide of 100 residues. In vitro translation of UPII mRNA demonstrated that UPII is indeed first synthesized as a 19-kDa precursor, which loses its signal peptide upon insertion into added microsomes; this process is accompanied by the acquisition of high mannose-type oligosaccharides giving rise to a 28-kDa precursor which is completely protected from the digestion by exogenous proteases. These results, together with the presence of a stretch of 25 hydrophobic amino acids at the C terminus, suggest that UPII protein is anchored to the lipid bilayer via its C-terminal membrane-spanning domain with its major N-terminal domain exposed luminally. The formation of the 15-kDa mature UPII requires the removal of the pro-sequence by a furin-like endoprotease. Since only mature UPII devoid of this pro-sequence can interact with 27-kDa uroplakin I, the proteolytic processing of UPII precursor may play an important role in regulating the assembly of AUM. Finally, we showed that genomic sequences cross-hybridizing with bovine UPII cDNA are present in many mammals suggesting that UPII performs a highly conserved function in the terminally differentiated cells of mammalian urinary bladder epithelium.