Background: Protein secretion is a fundamental process in all living cells. Proteins can either be secreted via the classical or non-classical pathways. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, gluconeogenic enzymes are in the extracellular fraction/periplasm when cells are grown in media containing low glucose. Following a transfer of cells to high glucose media, their levels in the extracellular fraction are reduced rapidly. We hypothesized that changes in the secretome were not restricted to gluconeogenic enzymes. The goal of the current study was to use a proteomic approach to identify extracellular proteins whose levels changed when cells were transferred from low to high glucose media.
Results: We performed two iTRAQ experiments and identified 347 proteins that were present in the extracellular fraction including metabolic enzymes, proteins involved in oxidative stress, protein folding, and proteins with unknown functions. Most of these proteins did not contain typical ER-Golgi signal sequences. Moreover, levels of many of these proteins decreased upon a transfer of cells from media containing low to high glucose media. Using an extraction procedure and Western blotting, we confirmed that the metabolic enzymes (glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, 3-phosphoglycerate kinase, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, pyruvate decarboxylase), proteins involved in oxidative stress (superoxide dismutase and thioredoxin), and heat shock proteins (Ssa1p, Hsc82p, and Hsp104p) were in the extracellular fraction during growth in low glucose and that the levels of these extracellular proteins were reduced when cells were transferred to media containing high glucose. These proteins were associated with membranes in vesicle-enriched fraction. We also showed that small vesicles were present in the extracellular fraction in cells grown in low glucose. Following a transfer from low to high glucose media for 30 minutes, 98% of these vesicles disappeared from the extracellular fraction.
Conclusions: Our data indicate that transferring cells from low to high glucose media induces a rapid decline in levels of a large number of extracellular proteins and the disappearance of small vesicles from the extracellular fraction. Therefore, we conclude that the secretome undergoes dynamic changes during transition from glucose-deficient to glucose-rich media. Most of these extracellular proteins do not contain typical ER signal sequences, suggesting that they are secreted via the non-classical pathway.