Publications

• l-Methionine sulfoximine, but not phosphinothricin, is a substrate for an acetyltransferase (gene PA4866) from Pseudomonas aeruginosa: structural and functional studies.

  Davies A.M., Tata R., Beavil R.L., Sutton B.J., Brown P.R.

  The gene PA4866 from Pseudomonas aeruginosa is documented in the Pseudomonas genome database as encoding a 172 amino acid hypothetical acetyltransferase. We and others have described the 3D structure of this protein (termed pita) [Davies et al. (2005) Proteins: Struct., Funct., Bioinf. 61, 677-679 ... >> More

  The gene PA4866 from Pseudomonas aeruginosa is documented in the Pseudomonas genome database as encoding a 172 amino acid hypothetical acetyltransferase. We and others have described the 3D structure of this protein (termed pita) [Davies et al. (2005) Proteins: Struct., Funct., Bioinf. 61, 677-679; Nocek et al., unpublished results], and structures have also been reported for homologues from Agrobacterium tumefaciens (Rajashankar et al., unpublished results) and Bacillus subtilis [Badger et al. (2005) Proteins: Struct., Funct., Bioinf. 60, 787-796]. Pita homologues are found in a large number of bacterial genomes, and while the majority of these have been assigned putative phosphinothricin acetyltransferase activity, their true function is unknown. In this paper we report that pita has no activity toward phosphinothricin. Instead, we demonstrate that pita acts as an acetyltransferase using the glutamate analogues l-methionine sulfoximine and l-methionine sulfone as substrates, with Km(app) values of 1.3 +/-0.21 and 1.3 +/- 0.13 mM and kcat(app) values of 505 +/- 43 and 610 +/-23 s-1 for l-methionine sulfoximine and l-methionine sulfone, respectively. A high-resolution (1.55 A) crystal structure of pita in complex with one of these substrates (l-methionine sulfoximine) has been solved, revealing the mode of its interaction with the enzyme. Comparison with the apoenzyme structure has also revealed how certain active site residues undergo a conformational change upon substrate binding. To investigate the role of pita in P. aeruginosa, a mutant strain, Depp4, in which pita was inactivated through an in-frame deletion, was constructed by allelic exchange. Growth of strain Depp4 in the absence of glutamine was inhibited by l-methionine sulfoximine, suggesting a role for pita in protecting glutamine synthetase from inhibition. << Less

  Biochemistry 46:1829-1839(2007) [PubMed] [EuropePMC]

  This publication is cited by 1 other entry.

• Nontargeted in vitro metabolomics for high-throughput identification of novel enzymes in Escherichia coli.

  Sevin D.C., Fuhrer T., Zamboni N., Sauer U.

  Our understanding of metabolism is limited by a lack of knowledge about the functions of many enzymes. Here, we develop a high-throughput mass spectrometry approach to comprehensively profile proteins for in vitro enzymatic activity. Overexpressed or purified proteins are incubated in a supplement ... >> More

  Our understanding of metabolism is limited by a lack of knowledge about the functions of many enzymes. Here, we develop a high-throughput mass spectrometry approach to comprehensively profile proteins for in vitro enzymatic activity. Overexpressed or purified proteins are incubated in a supplemented metabolome extract containing hundreds of biologically relevant candidate substrates, and accumulating and depleting metabolites are determined by nontargeted mass spectrometry. By combining chemometrics and database approaches, we established an automated pipeline for unbiased annotation of the functions of novel enzymes. In screening all 1,275 functionally uncharacterized Escherichia coli proteins, we discovered 241 potential novel enzymes, 12 of which we experimentally validated. Our high-throughput in vitro metabolomics method is generally applicable to any purified protein or crude cell lysate of its overexpression host and enables performing up to 1,200 nontargeted enzyme assays per working day. << Less

  Nat. Methods 14:187-194(2017) [PubMed] [EuropePMC]

  This publication is cited by 30 other entries.

• In Salmonella enterica, the Gcn5-related acetyltransferase MddA (formerly YncA) acetylates methionine sulfoximine and methionine sulfone, blocking their toxic effects.

  Hentchel K.L., Escalante-Semerena J.C.

  Protein and small-molecule acylation reactions are widespread in nature. Many of the enzymes catalyzing acylation reactions belong to the Gcn5-related N-acetyltransferase (GNAT; PF00583) family, named after the yeast Gcn5 protein. The genome of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium LT2 encodes 2 ... >> More

  Protein and small-molecule acylation reactions are widespread in nature. Many of the enzymes catalyzing acylation reactions belong to the Gcn5-related N-acetyltransferase (GNAT; PF00583) family, named after the yeast Gcn5 protein. The genome of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium LT2 encodes 26 GNATs, 11 of which have no known physiological role. Here, we provide in vivo and in vitro evidence for the role of the MddA (methionine derivative detoxifier; formerly YncA) GNAT in the detoxification of oxidized forms of methionine, including methionine sulfoximine (MSX) and methionine sulfone (MSO). MSX and MSO inhibited the growth of an S. enterica ΔmddA strain unless glutamine or methionine was present in the medium. We used an in vitro spectrophotometric assay and mass spectrometry to show that MddA acetylated MSX and MSO. An mddA(+) strain displayed biphasic growth kinetics in the presence of MSX and glutamine. Deletion of two amino acid transporters (GlnHPQ and MetNIQ) in a ΔmddA strain restored growth in the presence of MSX. Notably, MSO was transported by GlnHPQ but not by MetNIQ. In summary, MddA is the mechanism used by S. enterica to respond to oxidized forms of methionine, which MddA detoxifies by acetyl coenzyme A-dependent acetylation. << Less

  J. Bacteriol. 197:314-325(2015) [PubMed] [EuropePMC]

  This publication is cited by 1 other entry.