Abstract

The tubby family protein-TULP3 coordinates with the intraflagellar transport complex-A (IFT-A) in trafficking certain transmembrane proteins to cilia. These transmembrane cargoes have short motifs that are necessary and sufficient for TULP3-mediated trafficking. However, whether TULP3 regulates trafficking of membrane-associated proteins is not well understood. Here we show that TULP3 is required for transport of the atypical GTPase ARL13B into cilia, and for ciliary enrichment of ARL13B-dependent farnesylated and myristoylated proteins. ARL13B transport requires TULP3 binding to IFT-A core but not to phosphoinositides, unlike transmembrane cargo transport that requires binding to both by TULP3. A conserved lysine in TULP3s tubby domain mediates direct ARL13B binding and trafficking of lipidated and transmembrane cargoes. An N-terminal amphipathic helix in ARL13B flanking the palmitoylation site mediates binding to TULP3 and directs trafficking to cilia even in absence of palmitoylation and RVxP sorting motif. Therefore, TULP3 transports transmembrane proteins and ARL13B into cilia by capture of short sequences through a shared tubby domain site.