Involvement of Golgi-associated retrograde protein complex in the recycling of the putative Dnf aminophospholipid flippases in yeast

► Deletion mutants of GARP complex are sensitive to PE-binding lantibiotics Ro09-0198. ► Deletion mutants of GARP complex are defective in the uptake of PE analog. ► Dnf2p-EGFP mislocalized intracellularly in the mutants defective in GARP complex. ► GARP complex is involved in the recycling of Dnf aminophospholipid flippases. It is widely accepted that phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) is enriched in the cytosolic leaflet of the eukaryotic plasma membranes. To identify genes involved in the establishment and regulation of the asymmetric distribution of PE on the plasma membrane, we screened the deletion strain collection of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae for hypersensitive mutants to the lantibiotic peptide Ro09-0198 (Ro) that specifically binds to PE on the cell surface and inhibits cellular growth. Deletion mutants of VPS51, VPS52, VPS53, and VPS54 encoding the components of Golgi-associated retrograde protein (GARP) complex, YPT6 encoding a Rab family small GTPase that functions with GARP complex, RIC1 and RGP1 encoding its guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF), and TLG2 encoding t-SNARE exhibited hypersensitivity to Ro. The mutants deleted for VPS51, VPS52, VPS53, and VPS54 were impaired in the uptake of fluorescently labeled PE. In addition, aberrant intracellular localization of the EGFP-tagged Dnf2p, the putative inward-directed phospholipid translocase (flippase) of the plasma membrane, was observed in the mutant defective in the GARP complex, Ypt6p, its GEF proteins, or Tlg2p. Our results suggest that the GARP complex is involved in the recycling of Dnf flippases.