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Journal of Bacteriology, February 2009, p. 1162-1168, Vol. 191, No. 4
0021-9193/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.01137-08
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Trigger Factor from the Psychrophilic Bacterium Psychrobacter frigidicola Is a Monomeric Chaperone{triangledown}

Sylvain Robin,1,3,4 Denisio M. Togashi,2,3 Alan G. Ryder,2,3 and J. Gerard Wall1,3,4*

Department of Microbiology, School of Natural Sciences,1 Nanoscale Biophotonics Laboratory, School of Chemistry,2 National Centre for Biomedical Engineering Science, National University of Ireland, Galway, Galway, Ireland,3 Department of Chemical and Environmental Sciences and Materials and Surface Science Institute, University of Limerick, National Technology Park, Limerick, Ireland4

Received 13 August 2008/ Accepted 25 November 2008

In eubacteria, trigger factor (TF) is the first chaperone to interact with newly synthesized polypeptides and assist their folding as they emerge from the ribosome. We report the first characterization of a TF from a psychrophilic organism. TF from Psychrobacter frigidicola (TFPf) was cloned, produced in Escherichia coli, and purified. Strikingly, cross-linking and fluorescence anisotropy analyses revealed it to exist in solution as a monomer, unlike the well-characterized, dimeric E. coli TF (TFEc). Moreover, TFPf did not exhibit the downturn in reactivation of unfolded GAPDH (glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase) that is observed with its E. coli counterpart, even at high TF/GAPDH molar ratios and revealed dramatically reduced retardation of membrane translocation by a model recombinant protein compared to the E. coli chaperone. TFPf was also significantly more effective than TFEc at increasing the yield of soluble and functional recombinant protein in a cell-free protein synthesis system, indicating that it is not dependent on downstream systems for its chaperoning activity. We propose that TFPf differs from TFEc in its quaternary structure and chaperone activity, and we discuss the potential significance of these differences in its native environment.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Microbiology, NUI Galway, University Road, Galway, Ireland. Phone: 353-91-495808. Fax: 353-91-494598. E-mail: gerard.wall{at}nuigalway.ie

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 5 December 2008.

Journal of Bacteriology, February 2009, p. 1162-1168, Vol. 191, No. 4
0021-9193/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.01137-08
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.





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