D-Alanylation of the teichoic acids of the Gram-positive bacterial cell wall plays crucial roles in bacterial physiology and virulence. Deprivation of D-alanine from the teichoic acids of Staphylococcus aureus impairs biofilm and colony formation, induces autolysis and ultimately renders methicillin-resistant S. aureus highly susceptible to antimicrobial agents and host defense peptides. Hence, the D-alanylation pathway has emerged as a promising antibacterial target against drug-resistant S. aureus. D-Alanylation of teichoic acids is mediated via the action of four proteins encoded by the dlt operon, DltABCD, all four of which are essential for the process. In order to develop novel antimicrobial agents against S. aureus, the D-alanyl carrier protein ligase DltA, which is the first protein in the D-alanylation pathway, was focused on. Here, the crystal structure of DltA from the methicillin-resistant S. aureus strain Mu50 is presented, which reveals the unique molecular details of the catalytic center and the role of the P-loop. Kinetic analysis shows that the enantioselectivity of S. aureus DltA is much higher than that of DltA from other species. In the presence of DltC, the enzymatic activity of DltA is increased by an order of magnitude, suggesting a new exploitable binding pocket. This discovery may pave the way for a new generation of treatments for drug-resistant S. aureus.
SAV0506 is an 87 residue hypothetical protein from Staphylococcus aureus strain Mu50 and also predicted to have similar function to ribosome associated heat shock protein, Hsp 15. Hsp15 is thought to be involved in the repair mechanism of erroneously produced 50S ribosome subunit. In this report, we present the sequence specific backbone resonance assignment of SAV0506. About 82.5% of all resonances could be assigned unambiguously. By analyzing deviations of the Cα and Cβ chemical shift values, we could predict the secondary structure of SAV0506. This study is an essential step towards the structural characterization of SAV0506.
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