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Journal of Bacteriology, October 2002, p. 5508-5512, Vol. 184, No. 19
0021-9193/02/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JB.184.19.5508-5512.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
FepA with Globular Domain Deletions Lacks Activity
Hema L. Vakharia
and Kathleen Postle*
School of Molecular Biosciences, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington 99164-4234
Received 8 March 2002/
Accepted 30 June 2002

ABSTRACT
TonB-gated transporters have ß-barrels containing
an amino-terminal globular domain that occludes the interior
of the barrel. Mutations in the globular domain prevent transport
of ligands across the outer membrane. Surprisingly, FepA with
deletions of the globular domain (amino acids 3 to 150 and 17
to 150) was previously reported to retain significant sensitivity
to colicins B and D and to use ferric enterochelin, all in a
TonB-dependent fashion. To further understand TonB interaction
with the ß-barrel, in the present study, proteins
with deletions of amino acids 1 to 152, 7 to 152, 20 to 152,
and 17 to 150 in
fepA were constructed and expressed in a
fepA strain. In contrast to previous studies of
fepA globular domain
deletions, constructs in this study did not retain sensitivity
to colicin B and conferred only marginal sensitivity to colicin
D. Consistent with these observations, they failed to bind colicin
B and detectably cross-link to TonB in vivo. To address this
discrepancy, constructs were tested in other strains, one of
which (RWB18-60) did support activity of the FepA globular domain
deletion proteins constructed in this study. The characteristics
of that strain, as well as the strain in which the

FhuA globular
domain mutants were seen to be active, suggests the hypothesis
that interprotein complementation by two individually nonfunctional
proteins restores TonB-dependent activity.

TEXT
TonB-gated transporters are located in the outer membranes of
gram-negative bacteria, where they mediate the active transport
of iron siderophores and vitamin B12 across the outer membrane.
The energy for this process is transduced from the cytoplasmic
membrane by a complex of cytoplasmic membrane proteinsTonB,
ExbB, and ExbD (for reviews, see references
6 and
26). The crystal
structures of TonB-gated transporters (also known as outer membrane
receptors) reveal that they consist of a ß-barrel
that is occluded by an amino-terminal globular domain (also
known as the "cork" or "plug" domain) (
7,
10,
21). TonB protein
physically interacts with the transporters (
29), with at least
one contact occurring between TonB and a region near the amino
terminus of the globular domain, termed the TonB box (
8,
23).
Mutations within the TonB box prevent function of the transporter
(
3,
12,
22,
25). Recently, it has been reported that the amino-terminal
globular domains of FhuA and FepA can be deleted without significant
reduction in their activities and without alleviating their
requirements for TonB (
5,
28). In particular, deletion of the
FepA globular domain (amino acids 17 to 150) resulted in a protein
termed Fepß, reported to support binding of ferric
enterochelin (also known as ferric enterobactin), weak growth
with ferric enterochelin as a sole source of iron, and significant
sensitivity to colicins B and D (
28). The latter three activities
were also dependent upon TonB. The authors interpreted these
data and data from hybrid transporters to suggest that the globular
domain is not important for ligand recognition and that TonB
does not function by interaction with the internal globular
domain. Thus, TonB must interact within the ß-barrel
itself. To further examine TonB-barrel interactions, various
deletions removing the globular domain of FepA were constructed
for the present study.
The fepA gene was amplified as a BspHI fragment by PCR and cloned into the NcoI site of pBAD24 to create pKP515. Deletions in fepA were constructed in pKP515 by extra-long PCR as described previously (15) with primer sequences that are available upon request. DNA sequences of all plasmids were determined, and the absence of unintended base changes was confirmed. Deletion of amino acids 1 to 152 removed the entire globular domain up to an aromatic anchoring residue (trp) preceding the first ß strand (7). Deletion of amino acids 7 to 152 was constructed to mimic the FhuA deletion (FhuA
5-160) characterized previously (5), with a less extensive deletion (residues 20 to 152) constructed to leave the TonB box (a region through which TonB demonstrably interacts [8]) intact. During these studies the work on Fepß was reported, and so the identical protein FepA
17-150 was engineered as a control. Arabinose was added to the media for expression of wild-type FepA and three deletion proteins at chromosomal levels (final concentration, 0.25 µg/ml). FepA
1-152 required a final concentration of 10 µg of arabinose/ml to reach chromosomal levels (Fig. 1).
To determine if the constructs were correctly localized, strains
expressing the FepA variants in KP1394 (
fepA::
kan recA::
cat)
were fractionated on sucrose density gradients as previously
described (
20). All of the mutant FepA derivatives localized
as efficiently to the outer membrane as their wild-type parent
(Fig.
2).
The ability of the deletion-containing FepA proteins to use
ferric enterochelin as the sole iron source was evaluated. Ferric
enterochelin was freshly obtained from culture supernatants
of KP1344 (W3110,
tonB::
blaM) (
20). While wild-type FepA could
support ferric enterochelin-dependent growth (with zone sizes
similar to those observed previously [
28]), none of the FepA
globular domain deletion proteins could support growth beyond
that observed for KP1411 (W3110,
fepA::
kan recA::
cat aroB) (Table
1). The slight amount of growth conferred upon KP1411 suggests
the presence in the sterile culture supernatants of additional
siderophore-type molecules that enter via a different TonB-gated
transporter, since the
aroB tonB strain KP1406 is completely
unable to grow in the presence of the culture supernatant.
Since FepA and TonB are both required for sensitivity of
Escherichia coli to colicins B and D, the sensitivity conferred by various
fepA plasmids to colicins B and D was determined. Surprisingly,
none of the deletions supported sensitivity to colicin B (Table
2). All of the deletions showed marginal sensitivity to one
fivefold dilution of colicin D, with a barely visible zone or
clearing. The activity levels of these colicin preparations
were, if anything, of slightly higher titer than those used
in characterization of Fepß (
28).
View this table:
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|
TABLE 2. FepA globular domain deletion mutants are resistant to colicin B (ColB) and marginally sensitive to colicin D (ColD)
|
The ability of the FepA with globular domain deletions to bind
colicin B was measured in vivo. The strain expressing wild-type
FepA clearly bound colicin B. However, consistent with the sensitivity
assays, none of the strains expressing globular domain deletions
bound more colicin B than isogenic
fepA controls (Fig.
3).
FepA can cross-link to TonB in vivo (
29). This cross-linking
is significantly enhanced by the presence of ligand (
14). To
determine if the FepA globular domain played a role in that
process, the various
fepA plasmids in KP1394 (
fepA::
kan and
recA::
cat) were cross-linked as described previously. None of
the
fepA deletion mutants was able to cross-link to TonB, although
wild-type FepA expressed from either the chromosome or a plasmid
could form that complex (Fig.
4). This difference could be due
to lack of the ligand occupancy signal transmitted through the
globular domain (
7,
21) or due to loss of a TonB interaction
domain (
8,
18,
23,
29) or both. It is important to remember
that these results do not exclude a further interaction of TonB
with the barrel, one that is not detected by cross-linking.
Consistent with that idea, we were able to detect very weak
levels of coimmunoprecipitation of TonB by both wild-type FepA
and the globular domain deletion derivatives (data not shown).
The above results are in direct contrast with the previous results
of Scott et al., who demonstrated TonB specific activity for
their Fepß protein (
28). The major difference between
that study and this work is in the genetic backgrounds of the
strains examined. Here the activity of FepA

17-150 was assessed
in a W3110-derived background, whereas the identical Fepß
was assayed in strain KDF541 (F
- thi entA proC trp rpsL recA fepA fhuA cir). KDF541 is derived from RWB18-60 (
27) and was
isolated from it by a sequential selection for resistance to
colicin Ia and bacteriophage T5 to recover mutations in
cir and
fhuA, respectively. To our surprise, examination of RWB18-60
revealed that the presence of any of our plasmid-encoded
fepA constructs rendered it sensitive to undiluted colicins B and
D in cross-streaks (Fig.
5 and data not shown). Because one
of the strain differences involved the way in which enterochelin
synthesis was disrupted (
entA for RWB18-60,
aroB in our case),
we repeated the colicin sensitivity assays in RW193/MT912-59
(F
- thi trpE proC leuB lacY mtl xyl rpsL azi tsx supA
fepA::
kan entA403
recA srl::Tn
10 [
1]), which also carries
fepA,
entA,
and
recA mutations. In contrast to RWB18-60, RW193/MT912-59
carrying any one of the
fepA constructs was completely resistant
to undiluted colicins B and D in cross-streaks, excluding the
aroB/
entA difference as the source of variation, and confirming
the other data presented in this paper (Fig.
5).
RWB18-60 and RWB193-MT912-59 share the same genetic background,
RW193 (F
- thi proC leu trp entA403 and
tsx [
2,
16]). One of
the key differences between them, however, is in the chromosomally
encoded
fepA mutant allele. The strains that do not support
any activity in the plasmid-encoded
fepA mutants (including
RWB193-MT912-59) contain a
fepA deletion of codons 55 to 359
replaced by a
kan gene (
1). In contrast, RWB18-60 contains an
uncharacterized
fepA mutation (
16) and is also a lambda lysogen
(M. A. McIntosh, personal communication).
The mutant FepA expressed by RWB193-MT912-59 does not contain the globular domain, whereas the mutant FepA encoded by RWB18-60 could potentially do so. If the FepA protein of RWB18-60 contains a globular domain, then one possibility for the difference between the two strains might be due to interprotein complementation. The globular domain from the inactive chromosomally encoded FepA might insert into the empty ß-barrel of the plasmid-encoded globular domain deletions. This possiblity is strengthened by the fact that a similar situation exists in the case of the
FhuA globular domain analysis (5). In that case, the fhuA412 mutant background used to test the
fhuA globular domain mutations actually expresses a full-length FhuA412 protein carrying 5 different amino acid substitutions (17), which might functionally complement the plasmid-encoded
FhuA globular domain deletions. Failure to detect FhuA412 (or mutant FepA) protein in the plasmid-less strains could be explained if they were unstable, except in the presence of the plasmid-encoded globular domain deletion proteins.
Consistent with this hypothesis, FepA has been cross-linked into trimers in vivo by formaldehyde (29), suggesting that these transporters can function as a multimeric complex. In addition, only 10% of the FepA molecules in the previous study were active (28), suggesting a low level of complementation or low level of stability of the chromosomally encoded FepA mutant protein. Furthermore, it has recently been demonstrated that FhuA barrels could combine with non-FhuA globular domains to form active proteins, although, in that case, they were encoded on the same gene (17). This hypothesis also weakens the only existing strong evidence for TonB interaction with the ß-barrel of the transporters (5, 28): the TonB-dependent activities might have arisen from in vivo reconstitution of intact transporters. If they did arise in that manner, it suggests that the internal globular domain does indeed exit the barrel.
Finally, the present results are also most consistent with the significant body of data reported elsewhere stating that the amino-terminal globular domains of TonB-gated transporters are indeed important for ligand transport, binding, and interaction with TonB (4, 8, 9, 12, 21, 24, 30). Given the complexity of the system, it is not unreasonable to expect that both the internal globular domain and the ß-barrel are required for activity of the TonB-gated transporters and that each might still interact independently with TonB.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Wendy Shuttleworth and Greg Chen for purification of
colicin B, Penelope Higgs and Greg Chen for production of anti-colicin
B antibodies, Ray Larsen for construction of KP1406 (to be described
elsewhere) and critical reading of the manuscript, and Mark
McIntosh for strains RWB18-60 and RW193/MT912-59.
This work was supported by National Science Foundation research grant MCB97-24049 and National Institutes of Health research grant GM42146 (to K.P.).

FOOTNOTES
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: School of Molecular Biosciences, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-4234. Phone: (509) 335-5614. Fax: (509) 335-1907. E-mail:
postle{at}wsu.edu.

Present address: Burns and Allen Research Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA 90048. 

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Journal of Bacteriology, October 2002, p. 5508-5512, Vol. 184, No. 19
0021-9193/02/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JB.184.19.5508-5512.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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