The protein kinase Akt acts as a coat adaptor in endocytic recycling

Coat proteins have a central role in vesicular transport by binding to cargoes for their sorting into intracellular pathways. Cargo recognition is mediated by components of the coat complex known as adaptor proteins(1-3). We previously showed that Arf-GAP with coil-coil, ANK repeat and PH domain-containing protein 1 (ACAP1) functions as an adaptor for a clathrin coat complex that has a function in endocytic recycling(4-6). Here, we show that the protein kinase Akt acts as a co-adaptor in this complex, and is needed in conjunction with ACAP1 to bind to cargo proteins to promote their recycling. In addition to advancing the understanding of endocytic recycling, we uncover a fundamentally different function in which a kinase acts, as Akt in this case is an effector rather than a regulator in a cellular event. Hsu et al. find that the protein kinase Akt acts as a co-adaptor in the clathrin coat complex and is needed in conjunction with ACAP1 to bind to cargo proteins to promote their recycling.