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J Bacteriol. 1992 March; 174(6): 2032-2038

research-article

Localization of diphtheria toxin nuclease activity to fragment A.

Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles 90024.

ABSTRACT

We describe a series of experiments that aimed to establish whether nuclease activity is actually associated with diphtheria toxin (DTx) and its A subunit (DTA), as we originally reported (M. P. Chang, R. L. Baldwin, C. Bruce, and B. J. Wisnieski, Science 246:1165-1168, 1989). Here we show that (i) trypsinization of DTx does indeed produce nucleolytically active DTA, (ii) reduction of electroeluted, unreduced, cleaved DTx (58 kDa) yields nuclease-active DTA (24 kDa), and (iii) fractionation of DTx and DTA by anion-exchange chromatography leads to coelution of nuclease activity with both forms of the toxin, even though each form elutes at a distinct salt concentration. In addition, we show that Escherichia coli-derived DTA also expresses nuclease activity. These studies confirm our initial assertion that the nuclease activity observed in DTx preparations is intrinsic to the DTA portion of DTx.

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