Combinatorial sequence elements fine-tune mitochondrial protein import to facilitate dual localization
The dual targeting of mitochondrial proteins regulates a host of cellular processes, including metabolism, cofactor biosynthesis, mitophagy, and stress responsiveness. Despite this importance, the mechanisms by which proteins dually localize are incompletely defined. Here, we identify multiple sequence elements that compromise the matrix localization of the phosphatase PPTC7 to facilitate its accumulation at the outer mitochondrial membrane (OMM), where it regulates mitophagy. We find that PPTC7 has a moderately weak presequence, but this feature is insufficient to promote dual targeting of a generic cargo protein. Instead, our data suggest that a recently evolved glycine stretch decreases the helical potential of the PPTC7 presequence, weakening its import efficiency in vitro and in cells. Deletion of these glycine residues improves PPTC7 in vitro import and enrichment within the mitochondrial matrix, but only partially suppresses PPTC7-mediated regulation of mitophagy at the OMM. These data suggested additional elements may contribute to PPTC7 dual localization, including its mature phosphatase domain which has robust thermal stability and becomes further stabilized to an import-incompetent state upon binding to its requisite enzymatic co-factor manganese. Simultaneous increases in presequence strength and denaturation of the PPTC7 phosphatase domain are required to promote import in vitro, underscoring the multifactorial challenges associated with its matrix targeting. These data suggest that sequence-specific features can work combinatorially to impart dual-localization capacity to mitochondrial proteins, enabling functions across cellular compartments.