Over the past decade it has emerged that O-mannosyl glycans are not restricted to yeast and fungi but are also present in higher eukaryotes up to humans. In mammals, the protein O-mannosyltransferases POMT1 and POMT2 act as a heteromeric complex to initiate O-mannosylation in the endoplasmic reticulum. In humans, mutations in POMT1 and POMT2 result in hypoglycosylation of alpha-dystroglycan (alpha-DG) thereby abolishing its binding to extracellular matrix ligands such as laminin. As a consequence, POMT mutations cause a heterogeneous group of severe recessive congenital muscular dystrophies in humans. However, little is known about the function of O-mannosyl glycans in mammals apart from its crucial role for the ligand binding abilities of alpha-DG. In this chapter we discuss the methods used to analyze the expression of Pomt1 in adult mouse organs and during embryo development. Further, we describe the generation and immunohistochemical analysis of Pomt1 knockout mice.

Protein O-mannosyltransferases (PMTs) represent a conserved family of multispanning endoplasmic reticulum membrane proteins involved in glycosylation of S/T-rich protein substrates and unfolded proteins. PMTs work as dimers and contain a luminal MIR domain with a β-trefoil fold, which is susceptive for missense mutations causing α-dystroglycanopathies in humans. Here, we analyze PMT-MIR domains by an integrated structural biology approach using X-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy and evaluate their role in PMT function in vivo. We determine Pmt2- and Pmt3-MIR domain structures and identify two conserved mannose-binding sites, which are consistent with general β-trefoil carbohydrate-binding sites (α, β), and also a unique PMT2-subfamily exposed FKR motif. We show that conserved residues in site α influence enzyme processivity of the Pmt1-Pmt2 heterodimer in vivo. Integration of the data into the context of a Pmt1-Pmt2 structure and comparison with homologous β-trefoil - carbohydrate complexes allows for a functional description of MIR domains in protein O-mannosylation.

O-mannosylation is implicated in protein quality control in Saccharomyces cerevisiae due to the attachment of mannose to serine and threonine residues of un- or misfolded proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). This process also designated as unfolded protein O-mannosylation (UPOM) that ends futile folding cycles and saves cellular resources is mainly mediated by protein O-mannosyltransferases Pmt1 and Pmt2. Here we describe a genetic screen for factors that influence O-mannosylation in yeast, using slow-folding green fluorescent protein (GFP) as a reporter. Our screening identifies the RNA binding protein brefeldin A resistance factor 1 (Bfr1) that has not been linked to O-mannosylation and ER protein quality control before. We find that Bfr1 affects O-mannosylation through changes in Pmt1 and Pmt2 protein abundance but has no effect on PMT1 and PMT2 transcript levels, mRNA localization to the ER membrane or protein stability. Ribosome profiling reveals that Bfr1 is a crucial factor for Pmt1 and Pmt2 translation thereby affecting unfolded protein O-mannosylation. Our results uncover a new level of regulation of protein quality control in the secretory pathway.

For proteins entering the secretory pathway, a major factor contributing to maturation and homeostasis is glycosylation. One relevant type of protein glycosylation is O-mannosylation, which is essential and evolutionarily-conserved in fungi, animals, and humans. Our recent proteome-wide study in the eukaryotic model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae revealed that more than 26% of all proteins entering the secretory pathway receive O-mannosyl glycans. In a first attempt to understand the impact of O-mannosylation on these proteins, we took advantage of a tandem fluorescent timer (tFT) reporter to monitor different aspects of protein dynamics. We analyzed tFT-reporter fusions of 137 unique O-mannosylated proteins, mainly of the secretory pathway and the plasma membrane, in mutants lacking the major protein O-mannosyltransferases Pmt1, Pmt2, or Pmt4. In these three pmtΔ mutants, a total of 39 individual proteins were clearly affected, and Pmt-specific substrate proteins could be identified. We observed that O-mannosylation may cause both enhanced and diminished protein abundance and/or stability when compromised, and verified our findings on the examples of Axl2-tFT and Kre6-tFT fusion proteins. The identified target proteins are a valuable resource towards unraveling the multiple functions of O-mannosylation at the molecular level.

O-Mannosylation is a vital protein modification conserved from fungi to humans. Yeast is a perfect model to study this post-translational modification, because in contrast to mammalsO-mannosylation is the only type ofO-glycosylation. In an essential step toward the full understanding of proteinO-mannosylation we mapped theO-mannose glycoproteome in baker's yeast. Taking advantage of anO-glycan elongation deficient yeast strain to simplify sample complexity, we identified over 500O-glycoproteins from all subcellular compartments for which over 2300O-mannosylation sites were mapped by electron-transfer dissociation (ETD)-based MS/MS. In this study, we focus on the 293O-glycoproteins (over 1900 glycosylation sites identified by ETD-MS/MS) that enter the secretory pathway and are targets of ER-localized proteinO-mannosyltransferases. We find thatO-mannosylation is not only a prominent modification of cell wall and plasma membrane proteins, but also of a large number of proteins from the secretory pathway with crucial functions in protein glycosylation, folding, quality control, and trafficking. The analysis of glycosylation sites revealed thatO-mannosylation is favored in unstructured regions and β-strands. Furthermore,O-mannosylation is impeded in the proximity ofN-glycosylation sites suggesting the interplay of these types of post-translational modifications. The detailed knowledge of the target proteins and theirO-mannosylation sites opens for discovery of new roles of this essential modification in eukaryotes, and for a first glance on the evolution of different types ofO-glycosylation from yeast to mammals.