Cyanobacterial metallochaperone inhibits deleterious side reactions of copper.

Copper metallochaperones supply copper to cupro-proteins through copper-mediated protein-protein-interactions and it has been hypothesized that metallochaperones thereby inhibit copper from causing damage en route. Evidence is presented in support of this latter role for cyanobacterial metallochaperone, Atx1. In cyanobacteria Atx1 contributes towards the supply of copper to plastocyanin inside thylakoids but it is shown here that in copper-replete medium, copper can reach plastocyanin without Atx1. Unlike metallochaperone-independent copper-supply to superoxide dismutase in eukaryotes, glutathione is not essential for Atx1-independent supply to plastocyanin: Double mutants missing atx1 and gshB (encoding glutathione synthetase) accumulate the same number of atoms of copper per cell in the plastocyanin pool as wild type. Critically, Δatx1ΔgshB are hypersensitive to elevated copper relative to wild type cells and also relative to ΔgshB single mutants with evidence that hypersensitivity arises due to the mislocation of copper to sites for other metals including iron and zinc. The zinc site on the amino-terminal domain (ZiaA(N)) of the P(1)-type zinc-transporting ATPase is especially similar to the copper site of the Atx1 target PacS(N), and ZiaA(N) will bind Cu(I) more tightly than zinc. An NMR model of a substituted-ZiaA(N)-Cu(I)-Atx1 heterodimer has been generated making it possible to visualize a juxtaposition of residues surrounding the ZiaA(N) zinc site, including Asp(18), which normally repulse Atx1. Equivalent repulsion between bacterial copper metallochaperones and the amino-terminal regions of P(1)-type ATPases for metals other than Cu(I) is conserved, again consistent with a role for copper metallochaperones to withhold copper from binding sites for other metals.

Protein-folding location can regulate manganese-binding versus copper- or zinc-binding.

Metals are needed by at least one-quarter of all proteins. Although metallochaperones insert the correct metal into some proteins, they have not been found for the vast majority, and the view is that most metalloproteins acquire their metals directly from cellular pools. However, some metals form more stable complexes with proteins than do others. For instance, as described in the Irving-Williams series, Cu(2+) and Zn(2+) typically form more stable complexes than Mn(2+). Thus it is unclear what cellular mechanisms manage metal acquisition by most nascent proteins. To investigate this question, we identified the most abundant Cu(2+)-protein, CucA (Cu(2+)-cupin A), and the most abundant Mn(2+)-protein, MncA (Mn(2+)-cupin A), in the periplasm of the cyanobacterium Synechocystis PCC 6803. Each of these newly identified proteins binds its respective metal via identical ligands within a cupin fold. Consistent with the Irving-Williams series, MncA only binds Mn(2+) after folding in solutions containing at least a 10(4) times molar excess of Mn(2+) over Cu(2+) or Zn(2+). However once MncA has bound Mn(2+), the metal does not exchange with Cu(2+). MncA and CucA have signal peptides for different export pathways into the periplasm, Tat and Sec respectively. Export by the Tat pathway allows MncA to fold in the cytoplasm, which contains only tightly bound copper or Zn(2+) (refs 10-12) but micromolar Mn(2+) (ref. 13). In contrast, CucA folds in the periplasm to acquire Cu(2+). These results reveal a mechanism whereby the compartment in which a protein folds overrides its binding preference to control its metal content. They explain why the cytoplasm must contain only tightly bound and buffered copper and Zn(2+).

Structure and metal loading of a soluble periplasm cuproprotein.

A copper-trafficking pathway was found to enable Cu(2+) occupancy of a soluble periplasm protein, CucA, even when competing Zn(2+) is abundant in the periplasm. Here, we solved the structure of CucA (a new cupin) and found that binding of Cu(2+), but not Zn(2+), quenches the fluorescence of Trp(165), which is adjacent to the metal site. Using this fluorescence probe, we established that CucA becomes partly occupied by Zn(2+) following exposure to equimolar Zn(2+) and Cu(2+). Cu(2+)-CucA is more thermodynamically stable than Zn(2+)-CucA but k((Zn→Cu)exchange) is slow, raising questions about how the periplasm contains solely the Cu(2+) form. We discovered that a copper-trafficking pathway involving two copper transporters (CtaA and PacS) and a metallochaperone (Atx1) is obligatory for Cu(2+)-CucA to accumulate in the periplasm. There was negligible CucA protein in the periplasm of ΔctaA cells, but the abundance of cucA transcripts was unaltered. Crucially, ΔctaA cells overaccumulate low M(r) copper complexes in the periplasm, and purified apoCucA can readily acquire Cu(2+) from ΔctaA periplasm extracts, but in vivo apoCucA fails to come into contact with these periplasmic copper pools. Instead, copper traffics via a cytoplasmic pathway that is coupled to CucA translocation to the periplasm.