Perturbations in the spi1p GTPase cycle of Schizosaccharomyces pombe through its GTPase-activating protein and guanine nucleotide exchange factor components result in similar phenotypic consequences.
spi1p of Schizosaccharomyces pombe is a structural homolog of the mammalian GTPase Ran. The distribution between the GTP- and GDP-bound forms of the protein is regulated by evolutionarily conserved gene products, rna1p and pim1p, functioning as GTPase-activating protein (GAP) and guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF), respectively. Antibodies to spi1p, pim1p, and rna1p were generated and used to demonstrate that pim1p is exclusively nuclear, while rna1p is cytoplasmic. A loss of pim1p GEF activity or an increase in the rna1p GAP activity correlates with a change in the localization of the GTPase from predominantly nuclear to uniformly distributed, suggesting that the two forms are topologically segregated and that the nucleotide-bound state of spi1p may dictate its intracellular localization. We demonstrate that the phenotype of cells overproducing the GAP resembles the previously reported phenotype of mutants with alterations in the GEF: the cells are arrested in the cell cycle as septated, binucleated cells with highly condensed chromatin, fragmented nuclear envelopes, and abnormally wide septa. Consistent with the expectation that either an increased dosage of the GAP or a mutation in the GEF would lead to an increase of the spi1p-GDP/spi1p-GTP ratio relative to that of wild-type cells, overexpression of the GAP together with a mutation in the GEF is synthetically lethal. The similar phenotypic consequences of altering the functioning of the nuclear GEF or the cytoplasmic GAP suggest that there is a single pool of the spi1p GTPase that shuttles between the nucleus and the cytoplasm. Phenotypically, rna1 null mutants, in which spi1p-GTP would be expected to accumulate, resemble pim1(ts) and rna1p-overproducing cells, in which spi1p-GDP would be expected to accumulate. Taken together, these results support the hypothesis that the balance between the GDP- and GTP-bound forms of spi1p mediates the host of nuclear processes that are adversely affected when the functioning of different components of this system is perturbed in various organisms.