Dissection of the asynchronous transport of intestinal microvillar hydrolases to the cell surface.

Abstract
Novel subcellular fractionation procedures and pulse-chase techniques were used to study the intracellular transport of the microvillar membrane hydrolases sucrase-isomaltase and dipeptidylpeptidase IV in the differentiated colon adenocarcinoma cell line Caco-2. The overall rate of transport to cell surface was two fold faster for dipeptidylpeptidase IV than for sucrase-isomaltase, while no significant differences were observed in transport rates from the site of complex glycosylation to the brush border. The delayed arrival of surcrase-isomaltase in the compartment where complex glycosylation occurs was only in part due to exit from the endoplasmic reticulum. A major slow-down could be ascribed to maturation in and transit of this enzyme through the Golgi apparatus. These results suggest that the observed asynchronism is due to more than one rate-limiting step along the rough endoplasmic retiuclum to trans-Golgi pathway.