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Journal of Bacteriology, September 2000, p. 4783-4788, Vol. 182, No. 17
Department of Biotechnology, Center for
Process Biotechnology, Technical University of Denmark, DK-2800
Lyngby,1 and Biotechnological Institute,
DK-2970 Hørsholm,2 Denmark
Received 20 December 1999/Accepted 15 June 2000
The enzyme pyruvate formate-lyase (PFL) from Lactococcus
lactis was produced in Escherichia coli and purified
to obtain anti-PFL antibodies that were shown to be specific for
L. lactis PFL. It was demonstrated that activated L. lactis PFL was sensitive to oxygen, as in E. coli,
resulting in the cleavage of the PFL polypeptide. The PFL protein level
and its in vivo activity and regulation were shown by Western blotting,
enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and metabolite measurement to be
dependent on the growth conditions. The PFL level during anaerobic
growth on the slowly fermentable sugar galactose was higher than that
on glucose. This shows that variation in the PFL protein level may play
an important role in the regulation of metabolic shift from homolactic
to mixed-acid product formation, observed during growth on glucose and
galactose, respectively. During anaerobic growth in defined medium,
complete activation of PFL was observed. Strikingly, although no
formate was produced during aerobic growth of L. lactis,
PFL protein was indeed detected under these conditions, in which the
enzyme is dispensable due to the irreversible inactivation of PFL by
oxygen. In contrast, no oxygenolytic cleavage was detected during
aerobic growth in complex medium. This observation may be the result of either an effective PFL deactivase activity or the lack of PFL activation. In E. coli, the PFL deactivase activity resides
in the multifunctional alcohol dehydrogenase ADHE. It was shown that in
L. lactis, ADHE does not participate in the protection of
PFL against oxygen under the conditions analyzed. Our results provide evidence for major differences in the mechanisms of posttranslational regulation of PFL activity in E. coli and L. lactis.
0021-9193/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Synthesis and Posttranslational Regulation of
Pyruvate Formate-Lyase in Lactococcus lactis
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Center for
Process Biotechnology, Department of Biotechnology, Technical
University of Denmark, Building 223, DK-2800 Lyngby, Denmark. Phone:
(45) 45252669. Fax: (45) 45884148. E-mail:
CRM{at}ibt.dtu.dk.
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