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Journal of Bacteriology, December 2006, p. 8638-8648, Vol. 188, No. 24
0021-9193/06/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JB.00441-06
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Bryant C. Nelson,2
Gregory B. Vasquez,1
Andrew Davis,1
Andrew J. Howard,1,
Sean Patterson,1
Gary L. Gilliland,1,
Jane E. Ladner,1 and
Prasad T. Reddy1*
Biochemical Science Division,1 Analytical Chemistry Division, Chemical Science and Technology Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 208992
Received 30 March 2006/ Accepted 24 July 2006
The gene Rv1885c from the genome of Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv encodes a monofunctional and secreted chorismate mutase (*MtCM) with a 33-amino-acid cleavable signal sequence; hence, it belongs to the *AroQ class of chorismate mutases. Consistent with the heterologously expressed *MtCM having periplasmic destination in Escherichia coli and the absence of a discrete periplasmic compartment in M. tuberculosis, we show here that *MtCM secretes into the culture filtrate of M. tuberculosis. *MtCM functions as a homodimer and exhibits a dimeric state of the protein at a concentration as low as 5 nM. *MtCM exhibits simple Michaelis-Menten kinetics with a Km of 0.5 ± 0.05 mM and a kcat of 60 s1 per active site (at 37°C and pH 7.5). The crystal structure of *MtCM has been determined at 1.7 Å resolution (Protein Data Bank identifier 2F6L). The protein has an all alpha-helical structure, and the active site is formed within a single chain without any contribution from the second chain in the dimer. Analysis of the structure shows a novel fold topology for the protein with a topologically rearranged helix containing Arg134. We provide evidence by site-directed mutagenesis that the residues Arg49, Lys60, Arg72, Thr105, Glu109, and Arg134 constitute the catalytic site; the numbering of the residues includes the signal sequence. Our investigation on the effect of phenylalanine, tyrosine, and tryptophan on *MtCM shows that *MtCM is not regulated by the aromatic amino acids. Consistent with this observation, the X-ray structure of *MtCM does not have an allosteric regulatory site.
Present address: Department of Zoology, Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India.
Present address: Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL 60616.
Present address: Centocor, Inc., 145 King of Prussia Rd., Radnor, PA 10987.
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