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Journal of Bacteriology, March 2007, p. 2155-2159, Vol. 189, No. 5
0021-9193/07/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JB.01708-06
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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Department of Biotechnology, Graduate School of Agriculture and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8657, Japan
Received 6 November 2006/ Accepted 29 November 2006
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The filamentous, soil-inhabiting, gram-positive bacterial genus Streptomyces is characterized by the ability to produce a wide variety of secondary metabolites. Grixazone is one of the secondary metabolites produced by Streptomyces griseus. During our study of grixazone biosynthesis (19, 20), we found that S. griseus has distinct NAT activity. In some mutant and recombinant S. griseus strains, 3-amino-4-hydroxybenzoic acid (3,4-AHBA) and 3-amino-4-hydroxybenzaldehyde, both of which are intermediates of grixazone synthesis, were acetylated (19, 20). There have been no reports concerning NATs from Streptomyces species other than a description of the gene encoding a NAT-like protein found in the rubradirin biosynthesis gene cluster in Streptomyces achromogenes (18). In this paper, we describe the N acetylation of exogenous 3,4-AHBA by a NAT in S. griseus and properties of the NAT. This enzyme catalyzed the N acetylation of various 2-aminophenol derivatives more effectively than it catalyzed the N acetylation of INH or 5-AS, providing important information that is useful for understanding the role of Streptomyces NATs.
N acetylation of exogenous 3,4-AHBA in S. griseus. We recently found that two genes, griI and griH in the grixazone biosynthesis gene cluster, are responsible for the biosynthesis of 3,4-AHBA from two primary metabolites, L-aspartate-4-semialdehyde and dihydroxyacetone phosphate (20). A recombinant S. griseus strain overexpressing griI and griH produced 3-acetylamino-4-hydroxybenzoic acid (3,4-AcAHBA) in addition to a large amount of 3,4-AHBA. To confirm that 3,4-AcAHBA was produced by acetylation of 3,4-AHBA that had been synthesized by the action of GriI and GriH, we examined bioconversion of exogenous 3,4-AHBA to 3,4-AcAHBA by the wild-type S. griseus cells. S. griseus IFO13350 (8) was cultured at 30°C for 2 days in 100 ml of YPD liquid medium (19), and then 3,4-AHBA was added to the culture at a final concentration of 1 mM. Under the cultivation conditions used, no detectable 3,4-AHBA was produced endogenously by strain IFO13350. After the cells were incubated for an additional 2 days, compounds in the culture broth were analyzed by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), as described previously (20) (Fig. 1C). As shown in Fig. 1C, the culture broth contained 3,4-AHBA (0.48 mM) and 3,4-AcAHBA (0.49 mM), and the amount of 3,4-AcAHBA produced was stoichiometrically equivalent to the decrease in the amount of 3,4-AHBA. Therefore, the 3,4-AHBA added was bioconverted to 3,4-AcAHBA by S. griseus cells.
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FIG. 1. Disruption of the chromosomal natA gene and N acetylation of exogenous 3,4-AHBA by SgNAT. (A) Gene organization in the neighborhood of natA on the S. griseus chromosome and schematic diagram of construction of a natA mutant. Most of the natA coding sequence was replaced by the kanamycin resistance gene (aphII) as a result of a double crossover. Probes used for Southern hybridization are also indicated. HP, hypothetical protein. (B) Southern hybridization to check for correct disruption. Digoxigenin-labeled probes 1 and 2 were hybridized with BglII-digested chromosomal DNA from the wild-type strain and natA mutant. Hybridized probes were detected using an anti-digoxigenin Fab fragment conjugated to alkaline phosphatase with 4-nitroblue tetrazolium chloride and 5-bromo-4-chloro-3-indolyl-phosphate. (C) N acetylation of exogenous 3,4-AHBA by the wild-type strain and natA mutant. S. griseus cells were incubated at 30°C for 2 days in YPD medium supplemented with 1 mM 3,4-AHBA, and 10 µl of the culture broth was analyzed by HPLC.
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Putative nat gene in S. griseus. Because the acetyltransferase(s) responsible for the N acetylation of 3,4-AHBA in S. griseus used acetyl-CoA as the acetyl donor and because the acetyl acceptor, 3,4-AHBA, is an arylamine, we expected that the enzyme(s) would be a NAT homologue(s). We searched the genome sequence of S. griseus IFO13350 (our unpublished data) for open reading frames encoding a NAT homologue. A single open reading frame, tentatively designated natA, which encoded a 270-amino-acid protein exhibiting end-to-end similarity to eukaryotic and bacterial NATs, was found (see Fig. S1 in the supplemental material). We designated the protein SgNAT. SgNAT exhibited 35 to 40% amino acid identity to many bacterial NATs, whereas the sequence of the third domain of SgNAT (amino acids 184 to 270), which is thought to be the key to acetyl acceptor binding and specificity (15), exhibited greater sequence divergence. Cys-69, His-108, and Asp-125 of SgNAT were assumed to form the catalytic triad. The gene organization in the neighborhood of natA is shown in Fig. 1A. Although natA is located upstream of the gene encoding a putative aspartate aminotransferase in the same orientation, it is likely that natA is transcribed alone because the distance between natA and the putative aspartate aminotransferase gene is 347 bp.
While the endogenous role of most bacterial NATs remains to be established (16), some bacterial NAT-like proteins are involved in the biosynthesis of macrolide compounds. The rifamycin B biosynthesis gene cluster of the actinomycete Amycolatopsis mediterranei contains a gene (rifF) encoding a NAT-like protein. However, recombinant RifF lacked any measurable INH acetylation activity (13). RifF catalyzes the release of the completed polyketide from the rifamycin type I polyketide synthase by intramolecular amide formation, yielding proansamycin X (26). Intramolecular amide formation appears to proceed by a reaction mechanism similar to that of the N acetylation by NAT. The rubradirin and ansamitocin biosynthesis gene clusters of S. achromogenes (18) and Actinosynnema pretiosum (25), respectively, also contain a gene encoding a NAT-like protein, which is probably responsible for the intramolecular amide formation of the ansamycin precursor. Payton et al. (13) described the possible involvement of Gly-126 in S. enterica serovar Typhimurium NAT in acetyl-CoA binding. The Gly residue is situated adjacent to the active site Cys-69 residue in the crystal structure of S. enterica serovar Typhimurium NAT (17) and is highly conserved in NATs but not in the NAT-like proteins in actinomycetes. Because SgNAT contains Gly-130 corresponding to the highly conserved Gly residue (see Fig. S1 in the supplemental material) and because natA is probably not a member of a gene cluster for a certain metabolite, we assumed that SgNAT has NAT activity and uses acetyl-CoA as the acetyl donor, as occurs widely in organisms.
Disruption of the chromosomal natA gene.
To determine whether natA is responsible for the N acetylation of 3,4-AHBA, we generated a natA disruptant by replacing most of natA with a kanamycin resistance gene, aphII (Fig. 1A). Two-kilobase fragments upstream and downstream from natA were amplified by PCR and cloned into pCR4Blunt-TOPO (Invitrogen), resulting in p
natA-up and p
natA-down, respectively. To amplify the upstream region, primers 5'-GCATATGGTTGTTGACGGCGACCAC-3' (with an NdeI site underlined) and 5'-GAAGCTTCGGGCGAAGTACGCGTCG-3' (with a HindIII site underlined) were used. To amplify the downstream region, primers 5'-GCATATGCTGCAGAAGCTTCGGGCGAAGTACGCGTCG-3' (with an NdeI site underlined and a HindIII site in boldface) and 5'-GCCCAGTTCGTCGGTGAC-3' were used. The upstream region was excised with NdeI and HindIII from p
natA-up and placed between the NdeI and HindIII sites of p
natA-down, together with a 1.1-kb HindIII fragment carrying the kanamycin resistance gene (aphII) from Tn5, resulting in p
natA. The resulting plasmid was digested with EcoRI, alkali denatured, and introduced by protoplast transformation into the wild-type S. griseus strain. A kanamycin-resistant transformant was isolated, and the correct replacement of the deleted natA sequence with the intact chromosomal natA sequence, as a result of double crossover, was checked by Southern hybridization with appropriate probes (Fig. 1B). The natA disruptant grew normally and formed aerial hyphae and spores with the same time course as the wild-type strain. As we expected, no bioconversion of exogenous 3,4-AHBA to 3,4-AcAHBA occurred in the natA disruptant (Fig. 1C). Therefore, we concluded that SgNAT was solely responsible for the N acetylation of exogenous 3,4-AHBA.
There was no difference in sensitivity to 3,4-AHBA between the wild-type and natA-disrupted strains. Both strains exhibited poor growth on YPD agar medium supplemented with 2.5 mM 3,4-AHBA or 3,4-AcAHBA and did not grow in the presence of 5 mM 3,4-AHBA or 3,4-AcAHBA (data not shown), showing that the toxicity of 3,4-AcAHBA for S. griseus is almost the same as that of 3,4-AHBA and that SgNAT makes no apparent contribution to 3,4-AHBA resistance in S. griseus. Because disruption of natA resulted in no apparent phenotypic change, the endogenous role of SgNAT in S. griseus remains unknown, like the endogenous roles of most bacterial NATs. However, it is possible that SgNAT is involved in the detoxification of some other xenobiotic compounds.
Production of recombinant SgNAT by E. coli. To elucidate the catalytic properties of SgNAT, decahistidine-tagged SgNAT was purified to homogeneity by Ni2+ ion affinity chromatography and gel filtration column chromatography from E. coli BL21(DE3)/pLysS harboring pET-natA, which contained natA under control of the T7/lac promoter. To construct pET-natA, the natA sequence was amplified by PCR using primers 5'-GCATATGACTCTCGACCTCGAC-3' (with the start codon of natA in boldface and an NdeI site underlined) and 5'-GCTCGAGTCACTCCGGCAGCCGGAC-3 (with the stop codon of natA in boldface and an XhoI site underlined). The amplified fragment was digested with NdeI and XhoI and placed between the NdeI and XhoI sites of pET-16b (Novagen). The E. coli cells harboring pET-natA were cultured at 26.5°C for 24 h in LB medium supplemented with 50 µg/ml ampicillin, 34 µg/ml chloramphenicol, and 1% lactose, allowing constant expression of the T7/lac promoter. The harvested E. coli cells were suspended in buffer A (50 mM sodium phosphate [pH 8.0], 0.5 M NaCl, 20% glycerol, 7.5 mM 2-mercaptoethanol) containing 10 mM imidazole and 2 mg/ml lysozyme and disrupted by sonication. The cell lysate obtained by centrifugation was applied to a Ni2+-nitrilotriacetic acid spin column (QIAGEN) equilibrated with buffer A containing 10 mM imidazole. The column was washed successively with buffer A containing 50 mM imidazole and buffer B (50 mM sodium phosphate [pH 8.0], 7.5 mM 2-mercaptoethanol) containing 100 mM imidazole. Recombinant SgNAT, having the structure Met-Gly-(His)10-Ser-Ser-Gly-His-Ile-Glu-Arg-His-SgNAT, was eluted with buffer B containing 250 mM imidazole from the column. The buffer of the enzyme solution was changed by chromatography on a gel filtration column (Superdex 75 10/30; Amersham) with isocratic elution in buffer C (50 mM sodium phosphate [pH 7.0], 0.15 M NaCl, 7.5 mM 2-mercaptoethanol). Proteins were quantified by determining the absorbance of the protein solution at 280 nm using the molar absorbance coefficient 33,000 M1 cm1, which was calculated on the basis of the amino acid sequence.
The apparent molecular mass of the recombinant SgNAT was 34 kDa as determined by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (Fig. 2A). The NAT of S. enterica serovar Typhimurium forms an active dimer during storage of the purified recombinant protein for 2 weeks in vitro (15). Gel filtration column chromatography of purified SgNAT which had been stored at 4°C for 48 h after preparation of the cell lysate resulted in a single peak at a retention time representing a molecular mass of 40 kDa. This peak was also predominant (>90%) when chromatography was performed after 2 weeks, although some minor peaks were observed at retention times representing molecular masses of 51 to 71 kDa. These results show that, in contrast to the observation for the NAT of S. enterica serovar Typhimurium (15), SgNAT is a stable, enzymatically active monomer for at least 2 weeks.
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FIG. 2. Purification of His-tagged SgNAT from E. coli. (A) Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of molecular size markers (lane 1) and SgNAT purified from E. coli BL21(DE3)/pLysS harboring pET-natA (lane 2). Proteins were stained with Coomassie brilliant blue R-250. (B) Reaction catalyzed by SgNAT.
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TABLE 1. Substrate specificity of SgNAT
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Is the extreme preference for 2-aminophenols as acetyl acceptors found in many other NATs or specific to SgNAT? To our knowledge, there has been only one report indicating that 2-aminophenol is used as a substrate for a NAT. Takenaka et al. (21) examined the NAT activity in Bacillus cereus strain PDa-1 by biotransformation of various arylamines by using resting cells. The rate of transformation of 2-aminophenol by the strain in 24 h was reported to be 30.1%, while the rate of transformation of 5-AS was 100%. Although it is necessary to examine the N-acetylation activities of other NATs with 2-aminophenols, we assume that the substrate specificity of SgNAT is very different from the substrate specificities of other bacterial NATs.
In conclusion, we identified the natA gene responsible for the N acetylation of exogenous 3,4-AHBA in S. griseus. SgNAT, encoded by natA, is capable of acetylating various 2-aminophenol derivatives as substrates that are much more preferable than INH and 5-AS. The extreme preference for 2-aminophenols as acetyl acceptors is characteristic of SgNAT. This finding provides new insight into the substrate specificities of eukaryotic and bacterial NATs and should assist in identifying the endogenous roles of bacterial NATs (4).
Nucleotide sequence accession number. The nucleotide sequence reported in this paper has been deposited in the DDBJ, EMBL, and GenBank DNA databases under accession number AB280932.
Published ahead of print on 8 December 2006. ![]()
Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://jb.asm.org/. ![]()
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