'Come into the fold': A comparative analysis of bacterial redox enzyme maturation protein members of the NarJ subfamily.

Redox enzyme maturation proteins (REMPs) are system-specific chaperones required for the maturation of complex iron sulfur molybdoenzymes that are important for anaerobic respiration in bacteria. Although they perform similar biological roles, REMPs are strikingly different in terms of sequence, structure, systems biology, and type of terminal electron acceptor that it supports for growth. Here we critically dissect current knowledge pertaining to REMPs of the nitrate reductase delta superfamily, specifically recognized in Escherichia coli to include NarJ, NarW, TorD, DmsD, and YcdY, also referred to as the NarJ REMP subfamily. We show that NarJ subfamily members share sequence homology and similar structural features as revealed by alignments performed on structurally characterized REMPs. We include an updated phylogenetic analysis of subfamily members, justifying their classification in this subfamily. The structural and functional roles of each member are presented herein and these discussions suggest that although NarJ subfamily members are related in sequence and structure, each member demonstrates remarkable uniqueness, validating the concept of system-specific chaperones.

The hydrophobic region of the DmsA twin-arginine leader peptide determines specificity with chaperone DmsD.

The system specific chaperone DmsD plays a role in the maturation of the catalytic subunit of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) reductase, DmsA. Pre-DmsA contains a 45-amino acid twin-arginine leader peptide that is important for targeting and translocation of folded and cofactor-loaded DmsA by the twin-arginine translocase. DmsD has previously been shown to interact with the complete twin-arginine leader peptide of DmsA. In this study, isothermal titration calorimetry was used to investigate the thermodynamics of binding between synthetic peptides composed of different portions of the DmsA leader peptide and DmsD. Only those peptides that included the complete and contiguous hydrophobic region of the DmsA leader sequence were able to bind DmsD with a 1:1 stoichiometry. Each of the peptides that were able to bind DmsD also showed some α-helical structure as indicated by circular dichroism spectroscopy. Differential scanning calorimetry revealed that DmsD gained very little thermal stability upon binding any of the DmsA leader peptides tested. Together, these results suggest that a portion of the hydrophobic region of the DmsA leader peptide determines the specificity of binding and may produce helical properties upon binding to DmsD. Overall, this study demonstrates that the recognition of the DmsA twin-arginine leader sequence by the DmsD chaperone shows unexpected rules and confirms further that the biochemistry of the interaction of the chaperone with their leaders demonstrates differences in their molecular interactions.

Phenotypic and metabolic profiling of colony morphology variants evolved from Pseudomonas fluorescens biofilms.

Colony morphology variants isolated from natural and laboratory-grown biofilms represent subpopulations of biofilm cells that may be important for multiple aspects of the sessile lifestyle, from surface colonization to stress resistance. There are many genetic and environmental factors that determine the frequency at which colony morphology variants are recovered from biofilms. One of these factors involves an increased selection for variants in biofilms of Pseudomonas species bearing inactivating mutations in the global activator of cyanide biosynthesis/regulator of secondary metabolism (gac/rsm) signal transduction pathway. Here we characterize two distinct colony morphology variants isolated from biofilms of Pseudomonas fluorescens missing the gacS sensor kinase. These variants produced more biofilm cell mass, and in one case, this was likely due to overproduction of the exopolysaccharide cellulose. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) metabolomics revealed distinct metabolic changes for each of the two phenotypic variants, and these changes involved amino acids and metabolites produced through glutathione biochemistry. Some of these metabolites are hypothesized to play a role in redox and metal homeostasis, and corresponding to this, we show that biofilm populations grown from each of these variants had a different ability to survive when exposed to toxic doses of metal ions. These data suggest that colony morphology variants that evolve during growth of P. fluorescens as a biofilm may have distinct metabolic capacities that contribute to their individual abilities to withstand environmental stress.