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Journal of Bacteriology, February 2007, p. 1171-1175, Vol. 189, No. 3
0021-9193/07/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JB.01589-06
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Sharyn L. Rusch,
Jinoh Kim,
and
Debra A. Kendall*
Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269-3125
Received 12 October 2006/ Accepted 20 November 2006
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Sec-dependent proteins that cross the eukaryotic ER or the bacterial cytoplasmic membrane are synthesized with a single amino-terminal signal peptide whose highly hydrophobic nature plays a critical role in facilitating protein transport (5) through interactions with SecA (4). Proteins destined for the Sec pathway in the chloroplast thylakoid differ in that they are synthesized with presequences that are bipartite; the most amino-terminal portion corresponds to a transit sequence for passage through the chloroplast envelope and the second region is reminiscent of bacterial and ER signals. Does chloroplast SecA (cpSecA) directly interact with this signal, and is it tailored to discriminate thylakoid Sec signals from the variety of targeting signals for other chloroplast transport pathways?
Here, we address these issues by using cpSecA ATPase activity as an earmark of ligand interactions. In marked contrast to E. coli SecA, cpSecA ATPase activity is enhanced by a high concentration of DGDG and only a small amount of DOPG. Furthermore, cpSecA ATPase activity is preferentially stimulated by weakly hydrophobic chloroplast, but not bacterial, Sec signal peptides.
Helical content and ATPase activity of cpSecA is retained in lipid vesicles. To set the stage for examining the preferences of cpSecA for two key ligands, lipids and signal peptides, we first established that SecA retained secondary structural elements and ATPase activity upon lipid vesicle integration.
Plasmid pET-chlSecA was used to express a modified cpSecA in which the 60 amino-terminal residues corresponding to the chloroplast transit peptide are deleted and the carboxyl terminus is fused with a hexahistidine tag (23). E. coli strain BLR(DE3) (Novagen), grown at 37°C, was cotransformed with pET-chlSecA and RIG (1). The RIG plasmid carries genes encoding tRNAs that recognize codons used infrequently in E. coli, thus increasing the expression levels of heterologous proteins. Following growth and induction, cpSecA was solubilized (7) and purified by Ni-nitrilotriacetic acid metal affinity chromatography.
Circular dichroism spectroscopy of cpSecA (Fig. 1A) in aqueous solution yields a spectrum with minima at 208 and 220 nm and a maximum at 194 nm, characteristic of a protein with substantial
-helical secondary structure. The spectrum was similar for cpSecA in lipid vesicles of DGDG-DOPG (8:2). An analysis of the spectra yielded values of 76 and 79%
-helix for cpSecA in aqueous solution and lipid vesicles, respectively. The compatibility of cpSecA in DGDG-DOPG vesicles is underscored by comparison with cpSecA in sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) micelles, which gave a spectrum suggestive of a large loss of helicity (to 12%), with a concomitant large increase in random coil (to 54% from 10%) and some elements of ß-sheet.
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FIG. 1. CpSecA properties. (A) Circular dichroism spectra of cpSecA. cpSecA (0.15 mg/ml) in 10 mM Na2HPO4 (solid line), in DGDG-DOPG (8:2; 400 µg/ml) lipid vesicles (small dashed line), or in 0.25 M SDS (large dashed line). Spectra were analyzed using the CD Neural Network program (3). (B) Fluorescence spectra of cpSecA in the absence (solid line) and presence (dotted line) of mant-ADP. cpSecA (0.2 µM) was incubated with a 10-fold excess of mant-ADP for 10 min at 25°C in translocation buffer [0.05 M HEPES-KOH, pH 7.0, 0.03 M KCl, 0.5 mM Mg(OAc)2, 0.03 M NH4Cl]. The emission spectra were recorded using an excitation wavelength of 290 nm. (C) Change in fluorescence intensity at 450 nm in the absence and presence of ATP. F0 is the fluorescence of cpSecA alone, and F is its fluorescence in the presence of nucleotide.
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The ATPase activity of cpSecA, in contrast to E. coli SecA, indicates a preference for integration in vesicles with high DGDG content. The effect of lipid composition on the ATPase activity of cpSecA was examined using established assays (17, 19, 29). Keeping the concentrations constant for cpSecA (40 µg/ml) and lipid (400 µg/ml), we investigated the cpSecA-lipid ATPase activity in lipid systems composed of dioleoylphosphatidylcholine (DOPC)-DOPG, dioleoylphosphatidylethanolamine (DOPE)-DOPG, or DGDG-DOPG. The cpSecA-lipid ATPase activity exhibited a clear optimum at 20% DOPG, and the activity fell off rapidly at higher concentrations (Fig. 2A). That cpSecA activity peaks at 20% DOPG is interesting in view of the strong dependence of protein translocation on anionic lipids in vivo in E. coli (17, 27) and the optimum of 40 to 60% observed for signal peptide-stimulated E. coli SecA-lipid ATPase activity in vitro (19). The requirement for 20% DOPG is, however, consistent with the content of anionic lipids found in the thylakoid membranes of higher plants (30). Furthermore, these thylakoid membranes are dominated by neutral galactolipids which can comprise about 80% of the total lipid content. In vitro, we find that the presence of the galactolipid DGDG is clearly favored for cpSecA activity over the zwitterionic phospholipid DOPC or DOPE as a partner with DOPG. This is in marked contrast to E. coli SecA ATPase activity, which is strongly inhibited by even a small amount of DGDG (Fig. 2A).
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FIG. 2. Dependence of cpSecA ATPase activity on the presence of various lipids. Each data point represents an average of triplicate assays, performed at 37°C, ± standard error (error bars). (A) Influence of DOPG. The final concentration of lipids was 400 µg/ml. The cpSecA or E. coli SecA activity in the presence of lipids is, in each case, reported as a percent increase over the cpSecA or E. coli SecA activity, respectively, in aqueous solution. (B) Influence of DGDG. Lipid vesicles were composed of 20% DOPG with various ratios of DOPC and DGDG comprising the remaining 80%. The final concentration of lipids was 400 µg/ml. (C) Dependence on lipid concentration. The molar fraction of DGDG and DOPG was kept at 8:2. The cpSecA activity in each case is reported as a percent increase over the activity in aqueous solution.
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Furthermore, using vesicles of 80% DGDG and 20% DOPG, we find that the cpSecA ATPase activity is dependent on lipid concentration (Fig. 2C) with an optimum corresponding to an approximately 1,000:1 molar ratio of lipid to SecA. This is consistent with a requirement for SecA to be sufficiently ensconced in lipid to generate the fully active species (19). Flotation analysis (17) confirms that, under these conditions, cpSecA is associated with the membranes (Fig. 3). Interestingly, the association is related to the presence of DOPG and this may explain the requirement for small amounts of this lipid for maximal ATPase activity. Although DOPC with DOPG also promotes membrane association, only DGDG with DOPG stimulates cpSecA-lipid ATPase activity (Fig. 2A).
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FIG. 3. Association of cpSecA with lipid vesicles. Flotation gradient centrifugation of 15 µg cpSecA in the absence or presence (400 µg/ml) of lipid vesicles composed of 8:2 ratios of DGDG-DOPG, DOPC-DOPG, or DGDG-DOPC or of DOPC alone in a reaction mixture volume of 500 µl. Membrane-associated cpSecA will float to the top of the gradient (fraction 1), whereas cpSecA that does not integrate into lipid vesicles will be at the bottom (fraction 5). SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis shows the presence of cpSecA in each fraction quantified by densitometry.
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FIG. 4. SecA-lipid ATPase activity in the presence of GST-conjugated signal peptides. The final concentration of lipid in all assays was 400 µg/ml, and the final concentration of GST and signal peptides was 20 µM. Each data point represents an average of triplicate assays ± standard error (error bars). (A) cpSecA-lipid ATPase activity. The AP- and PPC-GST fusions carry the E. coli alkaline phosphatase and pea plastocyanin thylakoid signal peptides, respectively. Lipid ratios were DGDG-DOPG-SL (6:2:2) and DGDG-DOPG (8:2). (B) cpSecA-lipid ATPase activity. AP and ß-lac are GST fusions with signal peptides of the E. coli Sec pathway preproteins alkaline phosphatase and ß-lactamase, respectively. PPC and OE33 are GST fusions with the chloroplast Sec signal peptides pea plastocyanin and the 33-kDa subunit of the wheat oxygen-evolving complex, respectively. Suf and OE23 are GST fusions with the signal peptides for TAT preproteins, Suf I and the 23-kDa subunit of the oxygen-evolving complex, in E. coli and chloroplasts, respectively. The SecA activity in DGDG-DOPG (8:2) in each case is calculated relative to that in aqueous solution without signal peptide. (C) E. coli SecA-lipid ATPase activity. The SecA activity in E. coli phospholipids in each case is calculated relative to that in aqueous solution without signal peptide. Signal peptides are as defined for panel B.
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pH-dependent signal (OE23) (Fig. 4B). While E. coli Sec-dependent signal peptides stimulate the E. coli enzyme (14) (Fig. 4C), neither chloroplast signal peptide, plastocyanin, nor the 23-kDa subunit of the oxygen-evolving complex does (Fig. 4C). The signal peptides for pea plastocyanin and E. coli alkaline phosphatase are comparable in length (25 and 21 residues, respectively) and contain charged amino-terminal segments, central hydrophobic cores, and polar carboxyl segments. The plastocyanin signal peptide, like other thylakoid Sec signal peptides, however, includes an amino-terminal negative charge and is significantly less hydrophobic than the alkaline phosphatase signal peptide and other E. coli Sec signals. Perhaps the efficient import of a thylakoid protein first across the chloroplast envelope precludes the use of a Sec signal that is too hydrophobic and which otherwise might bind cytosolic factors, delaying or aborting its chloroplast targeting.
Once in the stroma, proteins may encounter multiple thylakoid-targeting routes. These routes include the spontaneous insertion of proteins (18), and signal recognition particle-dependent (9),
pH-dependent (6, 21), and SecA-dependent pathways (22, 33). A twin-arginine motif is specifically recognized by components of the
pH-dependent pathway, and hydrophobic sequences are favored by the signal recognition particle-dependent pathway (12, 13). The specificity of cpSecA for the Sec-dependent chloroplast signals observed here provides a mechanism for avoiding precursor proteins with those features. The distinctive requirements for the stimulation of cpSecA suggest that it has evolved to be specifically well suited for the environment of the chloroplast thylakoid and to recognize thylakoid Sec-dependent proteins.
We thank Ligong Wang and Alexander Miller for helpful discussions and for critically reading the manuscript. The contribution of E. coli SecA and GST samples from Alexander Miller, Ligong Wang and Maha Kebir is gratefully acknowledged. The generous gift of plasmid pPC1 was from Kenneth Cline and the plasmid pETchlSecA and pea SecA antibody from Toshiya Endo.
Published ahead of print on 1 December 2006. ![]()
Present address: Division of Biology and Medicine, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912. ![]()
Present address: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720. ![]()
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