Previous Article | Next Article ![]()
J. Bacteriol., Nov 1996, 6250-6257, Vol 178, No. 21
R Horlacher, K Uhland, W Klein, M Ehrmann and W Boos
Escherichia coli can synthesize trehalose in response to osmotic stress and
is able to utilize trehalose as a carbon source. The pathway of trehalose
utilization is different at low and high osmolarity. At high osmolarity, a
periplasmic trehalase (TreA) is induced that hydrolyzes trehalose in the
periplasm to glucose. Glucose is then taken up by the phosphotransferase
system. At low osmolarity, trehalose is taken up by a trehalose-specific
enzyme II of the phosphotransferase system as trehalose-6-phosphate and
then is hydrolyzed to glucose and glucose-6- phosphate. Here we report a
novel cytoplasmic trehalase that hydrolyzes trehalose to glucose. treF, the
gene encoding this enzyme, was cloned under ara promoter control. The
enzyme (TreF) was purified from extracts of an overexpressing strain and
characterized biochemically. It is specific for trehalose exhibiting a Km
of 1.9 mM and a Vmax of 54 micromol of trehalose hydrolyzed per min per mg
of protein. The enzyme is monomeric, exhibits a broad pH optimum at 6.0,
and shows no metal dependency. TreF has a molecular weight of 63,703 (549
amino acids) and is highly homologous to TreA. The nonidentical amino acids
of TreF are more polar and more acidic than those of TreA. The expression
of treF as studied by the expression of a chromosomal treF-lacZ fusion is
weakly induced by high osmolarity of the medium and is partially dependent
on RpoS, the stationary-phase sigma factor. Mutants producing 17-fold more
TreF than does the wild type were isolated.
Copyright © 1996, American Society for Microbiology
Characterization of a cytoplasmic trehalase of Escherichia coli
Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Germany.
This article has been cited by other articles:
Copyright © 2009 by the American Society for Microbiology. For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»