Jaap Broos

Nucleotide sequence of a chicken vitellogenin gene and derived amino acid sequence of the encoded yolk precursor protein

The gene encoding the major vitellogenin from chicken has been completely sequenced and its exon-intron organization has been established. The gene is 20,342 base-pairs long and contains 35 exons with a combined length of 5787 base-pairs. They encode the 1850-amino acid pre-peptide of vitellogenin, which is the precursor of the mature yolk proteins, the serine-rich and heavily phosphorylated phosvitin and the lipovitellin. The 217-amino acid phosvitin polypeptide occupies an internal position (residue 1112 through 1328) within the vitellogenin molecule. The 125,000 and 30,000 Mr lipovitellin polypeptides are encoded by the sequences at the N-terminal and the C-terminal sides of the phosvitin section, respectively. The main features of the gene and protein sequences, and the evolutionary implications, are discussed.

Mapping of the dimer interface of the Escherichia coli mannitol permease by cysteine cross-linking

A cysteine cross-linking approach was used to identify residues at the dimer interface of the Escherichia coli mannitol permease. This transport protein comprises two cytoplasmic domains and one membrane-embedded C domain per monomer, of which the latter provides the dimer contacts. A series of single-cysteine His-tagged C domains present in the native membrane were subjected to Cu(II)-(1,10-phenanthroline)3-catalyzed disulfide formation or cysteine cross-linking with dimaleimides of different length. The engineered cysteines were at the borders of the predicted membrane-spanning α-helices. Two residues were found to be located in close proximity of each other and capable of forming a disulfide, while four other locations formed cross-links with the longer dimaleimides. Solubilization of the membranes did only influence the cross-linking behavior at one position (Cys73). Mannitol binding only effected the cross-linking of a cysteine at the border of the third transmembrane helix (Cys134), indicating that substrate binding does not lead to large rearrangements in the helix packing or to dissociation of the dimer. Upon mannitol binding, the Cys134 becomes more exposed but the residue is no longer capable of forming a stable disulfide in the dimeric IIC domain. In combination with the recently obtained projection structure of the IIC domain in two-dimensional crystals, a first proposal is made for α-helix packing in the mannitol permease.

Efficient biosynthetic incorporation of tryptophan and indole analogs in an integral membrane protein

Biosynthetic incorporation of tryptophan (Trp) analogs such as 7‐azatryptophan, 5‐hydroxytryptophan, and fluorotryptophan into a protein can facilitate its structural analysis by spectroscopic techniques such as fluorescence, phosphorescence, nuclear magnetic resonance, and Fourier transform infrared. Until now, the approach has dealt primarily with soluble proteins. In this article, we demonstrate that four different Trp analogs can be very efficiently incorporated into a membrane protein as demonstrated for the mannitol transporter of Escherichia coli (EIImtl). EIImtl overexpression was under control of the λPR promoter, and the E. coli Trp auxotroph M5219 was used as host. This strain constitutively expresses the heat labile repressor protein of the λPR promoter. Together with the presence of the repressor gene on the EIImtl plasmid, this resulted in a tightly controlled promoter system, a prerequisite for high Trp analog incorporation. A new method for determining the analog incorporation efficiency is presented that is suitable for membrane proteins. The procedure involves fitting of the phosphorescence spectrum as a linear combination of the Trp and Trp analog contributions, taking into account the influence of the protein environment on the Trp analog spectrum. The data show that the analog content of EIImtl samples is very high (>95%). In addition, we report here that biosynthetic incorporation of Trp analogs can also be effected with less expensive indole analogs, which in vivo are converted to L‐Trp analogs.

Large Activation of Serine Proteases by Pretreatment with Crown Ethers

Pretreatment of serine proteases by lyophilisation in the presence of crown ethers leads to large enhancements of enzyme activity in organic solvents.

Structural mimicry for vinculin activation by IpaA, a virulence factor of Shigella flexneri.

Invasion of epithelial cells by Shigella flexneri is characterized by cytoskeletal rearrangements of the host cell membrane, promoting internalization of the bacterium. The bacterial effector IpaA is injected into the epithelial cell by a type III secretion apparatus and recruits vinculin to regulate actin polymerization at the site of entry. We analysed the complex formed between a carboxy‐terminal fragment of IpaA (IpaA560−633) and the vinculin D1 domain (VD1), both in crystals and in solution. We present evidence that IpaA560−633 has two α‐helical vinculin‐binding sites that simultaneously bind two VD1 molecules. The interaction of IpaA560−633 with VD1 is highly similar to the interaction of the endogenous, eukaryotic proteins talin and α‐actinin with VD1, showing that Shigella uses a structural mimicry strategy to activate vinculin.

Lactococcus lactis as expression host for the biosynthetic incorporation of tryptophan analogues into recombinant proteins

Incorporation of Trp (tryptophan) analogues into a protein may facilitate its structural analysis by spectroscopic techniques. Development of a biological system for the biosynthetic incorpor-ation of such analogues into proteins is of considerable importance. The Gram-negative Escherichia coli is the only prokaryotic expression host regularly used for the incorporation of Trp analogues into recombinant proteins. Here, we present the use of the versatile Gram-positive expression host Lactococcus lactis for the incorporation of Trp analogues. The availability of a tightly regulated expression system for this organism, the potential to secrete modified proteins into the growth medium and the construction of the trp-synthetase deletion strain PA1002 of L. lactis rendered this organism potentially an efficient tool for the incorporation of Trp analogues into recombinant proteins. The Trp analogues 7-azatryptophan, 5-fluorotryptophan and 5-hydroxytryptophan were incorporated with efficiencies of >97, >97 and 89% respectively. Interestingly, 5-methylTrp (5-methyltryptophan) could be incorporated with 92% efficiency. Successful biosynthetical incorporation of 5-methylTrp into recombinant proteins has not been reported previously.

Impact of the enzyme flexibility on the enzyme enantio- selectivity in organic media towards specific and non-specific substrates

A rationale is presented as to why the enantioselectivity of enzymes in dry organic media towards specific substrates is increased when the enzyme flexibility is increased. This is outlined for serine proteases towards N -acetyl-amino acid esters. The reasons why this relationship does not hold in the case of non-specific substrates are discussed.

Tryptophan Phosphorescence Spectroscopy Reveals That a Domain in the NAD(H)-binding Component (dI) of Transhydrogenase from Rhodospirillum rubrum Has an Extremely Rigid and Conformationally Homogeneous Protein Core

The characteristics of tryptophan phosphorescence from the NAD(H)-binding component (dI) component of Rhodospirillum rubrum transhydrogenase are described. This enzyme couples hydride transfer between NAD(H) and NADP(H) to proton translocation across a membrane and is only active as a dimer. Tryptophan phosphorescence spectroscopy is a sensitive technique for the detection of protein conformational changes and was used here to characterize dI under mechanistically relevant conditions. Our results indicate that the single tryptophan in dI, Trp-72, is embedded in a rigid, compact, and homogeneous protein matrix that efficiently suppresses collisional quenching processes and results in the longest triplet lifetime for Trp ever reported in a protein at ambient temperature (2.9 s). The protein matrix surrounding Trp-72 is extraordinarily rigid up to 50 °C. In all previous studies on Trp-containing proteins, changes in structure were reflected in a different triplet lifetime. In dI, the lifetime of Trp-72 phosphorescence was barely affected by protein dimerization, cofactor binding, complexation with the NADP(H)-binding component (dIII), or by the introduction of two amino acid substitutions at the hydride-transfer site. It is suggested that the rigidity and structural invariance of the protein domain (dI.1) housing this Trp residue are important to the mechanism of transhydrogenase: movement of dI.1 affects the width of a cleft which, in turn, regulates the positioning of bound nucleotides ready for hydride transfer. The unique protein core in dI may be a paradigm for the design of compact and stable de novo proteins.

Monitoring lysin motif-ligand interactions via tryptophan analog fluorescence spectroscopy

The lysin motif (LysM) is a peptidoglycan binding protein domain found in a wide range of prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Various techniques have been used to study the LysM-ligand interaction, but a sensitive spectroscopic method to directly monitor this interaction has not been reported. Here a tryptophan analog fluorescence spectroscopy approach is presented to monitor the LysM-ligand interaction using the LysM of the N-acetylglucosaminidase enzyme of Lactococcus lactis. A three-dimensional model of this LysM protein was built based on available structural information of a homolog. This model allowed choosing the amino acid positions to be labeled with a Trp analog. Four functional single-Trp LysM mutants and one double-Trp LysM mutant were constructed and biosynthetically labeled with 7-azatryptophan or 5-hydroxytryptophan. These Trp analogs feature red-shifted absorption spectra, enabling the monitoring of the LysM-ligand interaction in media with a Trp background. The emission intensities of four of the five LysM constructs were found to change markedly on exposure to either L. lactis bacterium-like particles or peptidoglycan as ligands. The method reported here is suitable to monitor LysM-ligand interactions at (sub)micromolar LysM concentrations and can be used for the detection of low levels of peptidoglycan or microbes in solutions.

Localization of the Substrate-binding Site in the Homodimeric Mannitol Transporter, EIImtl, of Escherichia coli

The mannitol transporter from Escherichia coli, EIImtl, belongs to a class of membrane proteins coupling the transport of substrates with their chemical modification. EIImtl is functional as a homodimer, and it harbors one high affinity mannitol-binding site in the membrane-embedded C domain (IICmtl). To localize this binding site, 19 single Trp-containing mutants of EIImtl were biosynthetically labeled with 5-fluorotryptophan (5-FTrp) and mixed with azi-mannitol, a substrate analog acting as a Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) acceptor. Typically, for mutants showing FRET, only one 5-FTrp was involved, whereas the 5-FTrp from the other monomer was too distant. This proves that the mannitol-binding site is asymmetrically positioned in dimeric IICmtl. Combined with the available two-dimensional projection maps of IICmtl, it is concluded that a second resting binding site is present in this transporter. Active transport of mannitol only takes place when EIImtl becomes phosphorylated at Cys384 in the cytoplasmic B domain. Stably phosphorylated EIImtl mutants were constructed, and FRET experiments showed that the position of mannitol in IICmtl remains the same. We conclude that during the transport cycle, the phosphorylated B domain has to move to the mannitol-binding site, located in the middle of the membrane, to phosphorylate mannitol.