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Journal of Bacteriology, July 2006, p. 5308-5314, Vol. 188, No. 14
0021-9193/06/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JB.00187-06
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Rie Kurebayashi,
Toshiharu Yakushi,
and
Michio Homma*
Division of Biological Science, Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University, Chikusa-Ku, Nagoya 464-8602, Japan
Received 4 February 2006/ Accepted 24 April 2006
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Vibrio alginolyticus has two types of flagella in each bacterial cell: a lateral flagellum with a proton-driven motor and a polar flagellum with a sodium-driven motor (2, 13). The most extensively studied sodium-driven motors are the polar flagella of Vibrio spp. (22, 34). In these sodium-driven motors, PomA, PomB, MotX, and MotY have been identified as essential proteins for torque generation. PomA and PomB are membrane proteins that have four and one transmembrane segments, respectively. Furthermore, the C-terminal periplasmic domain of PomB contains a segment with high sequence similarity to the peptidoglycan-binding motif (1). Thus, PomB is believed to anchor and immobilize the PomA-PomB complex to the peptidoglycan layer in the inner membrane. A PomA-PomB complex contains four PomA subunits and two PomB subunits, and purified complexes have been shown to catalyze sodium influx when they were reconstituted into proteoliposomes (29, 30, 36). In a proton-driven motor of Escherichia coli, the torque-generating unit is composed of four MotA subunits and two MotB subunits, which are orthologues of PomA and PomB, respectively (9, 16). Unlike the sodium-driven polar-flagellar motor, however, the proton-driven motor of Escherichia coli does not require MotX and MotY for torque generation.
MotX and MotY were identified in Vibrio spp. as proteins specific for the sodium-driven motor (20, 21, 26, 28). Additionally, MotY homologues were recently reported to be part of the lateral proton-driven flagellar system of Vibrio spp. and the flagellum of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (12, 32). As with MotB and PomB, MotY contains a C-terminal peptidoglycan-binding motif (28). We have shown that the N-terminal segments of MotX and MotY contain secretion signals and that cleavage of these signals leaves the mature proteins outside the inner membrane (27). We also recently demonstrated direct interaction between MotX and MotY and that in the absence of MotY, the overproduction of MotX affected the membrane localization of PomB and the PomA-PomB complex, suggesting interaction between MotX and PomB (25).
Although there are several lines of evidence for the membrane localization and direct interaction of MotX and MotY, the precise roles of these proteins are still unclear. Since overproduction of MotX partially restored the motility of motY strains (26), we hypothesized that MotX is more directly involved than MotY in torque generation. In this report, to elucidate the functions of MotY, we randomly mutagenized a motY gene cloned on a plasmid and isolated three missense mutations that caused various swimming defects. Two of the mutations were found to change the two cysteine residues in MotY. Coincidently, MotX also has two cysteine residues, and MotX and MotY each contain a tetrapeptide sequence that begins with a cysteine (CQLV) (20). Both of the cysteine residues are highly conserved in either MotX or MotY of various species. To investigate the roles of the cysteine residues, we constructed mutants of MotX and MotY in which the cysteine residues were replaced by serine residues. We then characterized these mutants in terms of the swimming and swarming abilities of the bacteria, protein stability, and the MotX-MotY interaction.
Isolation of motY mutants and characterization of their motility. Random mutagenesis of the motY gene was carried out by treating the plasmid pIO6 with hydroxylamine as described previously (17). The mutagenized plasmids were introduced into the motY mutant VIO542 (28), which possesses a nonmotile polar flagellum, though the mutation site has not been determined yet (15). We then isolated mutants that were completely or partially impaired in their polar-flagellar motility in a semisolid agar. Each of the nucleotide changes in the motY alleles was determined by DNA sequencing. In 10 isolates, no nucleotide change was found in the motY coding region of the plasmid, suggesting that the causative mutations likely affected the expression of motY. Introduced termination codons were found in an additional 16 isolates. We identified two isolates carrying single amino acid substitutions and one isolate with two amino acid substitutions: MotY-C147Y, MotY-R262Q, and MotY-C25Y(S3N). It is noteworthy that two of the missense mutations affected one of the two cysteine residues found in MotY. The arginine residue at amino acid position 262 is located in a peptidoglycan-binding motif (28). The peptidoglycan-binding motif is conserved among the motor proteins MotB, PomB, and MotY, as well as several outer membrane proteins, such as PAL and OmpA (8, 10). Peptidoglycan binding by any of the flagellar-motor proteins, however, has not been demonstrated in vivo or in vitro; thus, the significance of these peptidoglycan-binding motifs for motor function remains unknown.
MotY-C147Y, MotY-R262Q, and MotY-C25Y(S3N) were produced in VIO5 (a strain with wild-type polar flagella) (28) and GRF2 (a
motY strain constructed from VIO5 in this study) (Table 1) cells, and the motility of the cells in 0.25% agar was analyzed (Fig. 1 and Table 2). Whereas wild-type MotY complemented the motility defect of the GRF2 cells, none of the three mutants was able to produce a wild-type level of motility in GRF2 cells. Among these MotY mutants, MotY-R262Q expression resulted in the most motile bacteria and also produced a negative dominance by multicopy effects (slower swarming speed) when it was coexpressed in VIO5 cells with the genomic copy of wild-type MotY.
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TABLE 1. Bacterial strains and plasmids
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FIG. 1. Characterization of MotY mutants. (A) VPG (1% polypeptone, 0.4% K2HPO4, 3% NaCl, and 0.5% [wt/vol] glycerol) plates containing 0.25% agar and 100 µg/ml kanamycin were inoculated with fresh colonies of the wild-type strain (VIO5) or the motY mutant strain (GRF2) expressing the indicated proteins from plasmids. They were incubated at 30°C for 4 h or 15 h. The plasmids and strains used are listed in Table 1. (B) Whole-cell lysates and the membrane fractions of GRF2 cells ( motY) expressing the indicated proteins from plasmids and the wild-type strain [VIO5; wt (genomic)] were prepared and subjected to sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and immunoblotting as described previously (35) using anti-MotY antibodies (MotYB0079) in the absence (left) or the presence (right) of 2-mercaptoethanol (2ME). The asterisks (upper left and upper right) indicate that those samples were 1/10 the volume of the other samples. The anti-MotY antibody was raised against purified MotY produced from pKJ503 (25), which encoded C-terminally histidine-tagged MotY.
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TABLE 2. Swimming fractions
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Intramolecular disulfide bond in MotY. Since native MotY contains two cysteine residues, it is possible that these two cysteine residues are involved in intramolecular or intermolecular disulfide bond formation, which might be important for the function of the protein. To investigate this possibility, we constructed three motY mutants in which either or both cysteine residues were replaced by serine residues (pRK201 [C25S], pRK202 [C147S], and pRK203 [C25S/C147S]). The MotY-C25S mutant was not motile either on 0.25% agar plates or in broth medium, whereas the MotY-C147S and MotY-C25S/C147S mutants showed significantly reduced but observable spreads in the swarm assay after 15-h incubations (Fig. 1A). Since we did not find any revertant or pseudorevertant that would swarm at the rate of the wild type, it is not likely that those swimmers were the reverted wild-type cells. The swimming fraction of MotY-C147S and the double cysteine mutant in broth medium were below 1% (Table 2).
Next, we performed immunoblot assays to detect the mutant proteins. In the presence of the reducing agent 2-mercaptoethanol, all the MotY derivatives overexpressed with the lac promoter for enhanced visualization appeared as an approximately 30-kDa band, which was consistent with the expected size of the mature MotY protein. In the absence of 2-mercaptoethanol, however, there were slight differences in the mobilities of the wild-type and the MotY Cys mutant proteins (Fig. 1B). In the presence of a reducing agent, the native MotY band shifted upward to align with the other proteins. The faster mobility of the wild-type band in the absence of a reducing agent can be explained by a more compact conformation of the wild-type protein due to intramolecular disulfide bond formation. There were also significant differences in the band intensities. For the whole-cell preparations, the intensity of the overproduced wild-type MotY band was much stronger than the intensity of any of the Cys mutant protein bands. The differences in the band intensities from membrane fraction samples, however, were moderate. These results strongly suggest that MotY contains an intramolecular disulfide bridge. The reduced levels of the MotY Cys mutants suggest that the intramolecular disulfide bridge in MotY is required to maintain a stable conformation; without the disulfide bond, MotY is more susceptible to degradation and the amount of the protein is greatly reduced. However, the band intensities of the overproduced proteins with Cys replaced were still far greater than that of chromosomally expressed wild-type MotY. This might imply that the conformation achieved by the intramolecular cross-linking is necessary for the proper function of MotY, in addition to resistance to degradation. Whereas wild-type MotY did not show a sign of intermolecular cross-linking, MotY-C25S and MotY-C147S produced intermolecular-cross-link products in immunoblot assays; in particular, MotY-C25S showed numerous extra bands (data not shown). We speculate that the cysteine residue at 147 is more prone to a cross-link formation with other periplasmic proteins than C25 when an intramolecular cross-link is not possible and that the homo- or heterodimer formation interferes with its function.
Prevention of MotX degradation by MotY. It has been shown that MotY directly interacts with MotX and that in the absence of MotY expression, MotX is not detectable by immunoblotting (25, 26). These lines of evidence led us to hypothesize that MotY acts to protect MotX against degradation. To evaluate our MotY mutants, we examined whether our MotY derivatives could prevent the degradation of MotX. As expected, increasing the amount of wild-type MotY elevated the level of detectable MotX without changing the motX expression on the chromosome (Fig. 2). Overexpression of MotY-R262Q also increased the detectable MotX level; it is likely that the R262 residue does not affect the interaction with MotX. On the other hand, although the levels of the Cys-substituted MotY mutants were greater than that of genomically expressed wild-type MotY, no MotX band was observed from cells expressing these mutant MotY proteins (Fig. 1B). This result implies that these Cys mutants are impaired in the ability to interact with MotX, and we postulate two distinct consequences: elevated susceptibility to periplasmic digestion and loss of a docking site for MotX. Since MotX appears to be more directly involved in flagellar-motor function than MotY (26), the direct reason for swimming deficiencies of these MotY Cys mutants seems to be the loss of MotX due to degradation.
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FIG. 2. Detection of MotX in strains coexpressing various MotY mutant proteins. Whole-cell lysates of the GRF2 strain ( motY) expressing the indicated proteins from plasmids and the wild-type strain [VIO5; wt (genomic)] were prepared and subjected to sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and immunoblotting as described previously (35) using anti-MotX antibodies (MotXB0080).
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FIG. 3. Characterization of the MotX mutants. (A) VPG plates containing 0.25% agar, kanamycin, and various concentrations of DTT were inoculated with fresh colonies of motX mutant cells (NMB94) expressing the indicated proteins from plasmids and incubated at 30°C for 4 h. (B) Whole-cell lysates of the NMB94 strain expressing the indicated proteins from plasmids were prepared and subjected to sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and immunoblotting as described previously (35) using anti-MotX antibodies (MotXB0080) in the absence () and the presence (+) of 2-mercaptoethanol (2ME). The anti-MotX antibody was raised against purified MotX produced from pKJ402, which encoded C-terminally histidine-tagged MotX.
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Unlike MotY, wild-type MotX exhibited the same gel mobilities in the presence and absence of the reductant. We then treated MotX with biotin maleimide, which binds to free thiol groups, and the labeled biotin was detected using horseradish peroxidase-conjugated streptavidin. The labeled biotin was detected only when DTT was added to the sample (Fig. 4). Since the wild-type protein seemed to be a monomer in the absence of the reductant (Fig. 3B), biotin labeling only in the presence of DTT suggests that MotX contains an intramolecular disulfide bond. In conclusion, the presence of the intramolecular disulfide bond is not essential for the function of MotX but instead affects the susceptibility of the protein to degradation.
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FIG. 4. Biotin maleimide labeling of MotX cysteine residues. NMB94 harboring pMO401 (MotX wild type) was treated with biotin maleimide (BM) and DTT or CuCl2. The immunoprecipitates were separated by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and transferred to polyvinylidene difluoride membranes. Biotinylated MotX was detected with streptavidin-conjugated horseradish peroxidase and chemiluminescence (A) or immunoblotting using anti-MotX antibodies (B).
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FIG. 5. Schematic diagram of MotX and MotY. MotX and MotY contain two cysteine residues and the conserved tetrapeptide CQLV. The arrowheads indicate the cleavage sites of the signal sequences (gray sections). The double-headed arrow demarcates the region containing the putative motif for peptidoglycan binding (PG motif). a.a., amino acids.
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This work was supported in part by grants-in-aid for scientific research from the Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture of Japan; from the Japan Science and Technology Corporation (to M.H. and T.Y.); and from the Soft Nano-Machine Project of the Japan Science and Technology Agency (to T.Y. and M.H.).
Present address: Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, 266 Whitney Avenue, Bass 225, New Haven, CT 06520-8114. ![]()
Present address: Department of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Faculty of Agriculture, Shinshu University, Minamiminowa, Nagano 399-4598, Japan. ![]()
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