title: Conserved roles for yeast Rho1 and mammalian RhoA GTPases in clathrin-independent endocytosis.
abstract: Eukaryotic cells use numerous endocytic pathways for nutrient uptake, protein turnover and response to the extracellular environment. While clathrin-mediated endocytosis (CME) has been extensively studied in yeast and mammalian cells, recent studies in higher eukaryotes have described multiple clathrin-independent endocytic pathways that depend upon Rho family GTPases and their effector proteins. In contrast, yeast cells have been thought to rely solely on CME. In a recent study, we used CME-defective yeast cells lacking clathrin-binding endocytic adaptor proteins in a genetic screen to identify novel factors involved in endocytosis. This approach revealed the existence of a clathrin-independent endocytic pathway involving the GTPase Rho1, which is the yeast homolog of RhoA. Further characterization of the yeast Rho1-mediated endocytic pathway suggested that the Rho1 pathway requires additional proteins that appear to play conserved roles in RhoA-dependent, clathrin-independent endocytic pathways in mammalian cells. Here, we discuss the parallels between the yeast Rho1-dependent and mammalian RhoA-dependent endocytic pathways, as well as the applications of yeast as a model for studying clathrin-independent endocytosis in higher eukaryotes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, The John Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA. dprosser@jhu.edu
authors.forename: Derek C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Prosser
authors.forename: Beverly
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wendland
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002966:Clathrin / Q000502:physiology; D004705:Endocytosis / Q000502:physiology*; D005656:Fungal Proteins / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D015003:Yeasts / Q000502:physiology*; D020742:rhoA GTP-Binding Protein / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D002966:Clathrin; D005656:Fungal Proteins; D020742:rhoA GTP-Binding Protein