Sequential Analysis of Trans-SNARE Formation in Intracellular Membrane Fusion

SNARE complexes are required for membrane fusion in the endomembrane system. They contain coiled-coil bundles of four helices, three (Qa, Qb, and Qc) from target (t)-SNAREs and one (R) from the vesicular (v)-SNARE. NSF/Sec18 disrupts these cis-SNARE complexes, allowing reassembly of their subunits into trans-SNARE complexes and subsequent fusion. Studying these reactions in native yeast vacuoles, we found that NSF/Sec18 activates the vacuolar cis-SNARE complex by selectively displacing the vacuolar Qa SNARE, leaving behind a QbcR subcomplex. This subcomplex serves as an acceptor for a Qa SNARE from the opposite membrane, leading to Qa-QbcR trans-complexes. Activity tests of vacuoles with diagnostic distributions of inactivating mutations over the two fusion partners confirm that this distribution accounts for a major share of the fusion activity. The persistence of the QbcR cis-complex and the formation of the Qa-QbcR trans-complex are both sensitive to the Rab-GTPase inhibitor, GDI, and to mutations in the vacuolar tether complex, HOPS (HOmotypic fusion and vacuolar Protein Sorting complex). This suggests that the vacuolar Rab-GTPase, Ypt7, and HOPS restrict cis-SNARE disassembly and thereby bias trans-SNARE assembly into a preferred topology.