A precursor for sporamin A, the storage protein of the tuberous roots of sweet potato deposited in the vacuole, is synthesized on membrane-bound polysomes and has an extra peptide of 37 amino acids at the N-terminus of the mature form, which can be divided into an N-terminal putative signal peptide sequence (residues -37 to -17) and a segment enriched with charged amino acids (residues -16 to -1) [Hattori, T., et al. (1985) Plant Mol. Biol. 5, 313-320]. We examined the in vitro processing of the sporamin A precursor using a messenger RNA derived from a full-length cDNA by the SP6 transcription system. When the in vitro translation in a wheat germ cell-free system was carried out in the presence of dog pancreas microsomal membranes, the precursor polypeptide (Mr = 24,000) was processed into an intermediate form still larger than the mature polypeptide (Mr = 20,000). The processed intermediate form was also produced by addition of microsomal membranes from sweet potato and potato in the translation reaction, although less efficiently compared to dog membranes. Moreover, Escherichia coli cells expressing sporamin precursor accumulated a polypeptide with the same electrophoretic mobility as the intermediate form produced in vitro. The processing by dog membranes is accompanied by translocation of the polypeptide across the membranes as assayed by resistance to externally added proteases. The N-terminal amino acid sequencing analysis of [3H]leucine-labelled intermediate form produced in vitro by dog membranes indicated that co-translational processing of the sporamin precursor by endoplasmic reticulum membranes removes only the signal peptide segment from the extra peptide, and suggested that the charged segment following the signal peptide is removed post-translationally during the transport of sporamin into vacuole. The significance of two-step processing of plant vacuolar protein precursor is discussed in relation to the two-step processing of precursors for yeast vacuolar proteins and animal lysosomal proteins.