Structural Studies of Biopolymer Membrane Transport

Abstract

The selective transport of specific substrates across the membrane is an essential part of biology.Organisms have evolved a basic mechanism for the transport of ions and small molecule such as sugars across the membrane. This mechanism is termed 'alternating access' and involves the alternating exposure of a substrate-binding site to either side of the membrane. While the molecular details of 'alternating access' have been revealed for a number of different transporters, this scheme seems infeasible for the transport of long biopolymers such as nucleic acids, proteins, and polysaccharides because 'alternating access' requires that the transporter forms a binding site that is large enough to bind the entire substrate. Here, I present novel data addressing the transport mechanism for two bacterial biopolymer transporter proteins: Bacterial Cellulose Synthase which synthesizes and secretes the polysaccharide, cellulose; and PrtD, an ABC transporter which is involved in the secretion of an extracellular protease.Cellulose is a linear polymer of glucose units that forms a major component of plant cell walls as well as many bacterial biofilms. In bacteria, the components required for cellulose biosynthesis are encoded in a single operon minimally made up of the genes bcsA, bcsB, bcsC, and bcsZ. BcsA is an integral inner-membrane (IM) glycosyltransferase enzyme that is responsible for coupling the synthesis of cellulose with its transport across the IM. BcsB is a periplasmic protein with Cterminal IM anchor, and BcsB forms a complex with BcsA (BcsA-B) that is sufficient for in vitro cellulose synthesis. BcsZ is a periplasmic cellulase enzyme, and BcsC is an outer-membrane β-barrel that presumably forms a pore for the cellulose polymer to cross the outer membrane.iii BcsA-B activity is stimulated by the bacterial signaling molecule, cyclic-di-GMP (c-di-GMP), which is a key regulator of biofilm formation. I present crystal structures of the c-di-GMP-bound BcsA-B complex in the presence and absence of UDP, a competitive inhibitor and substrate mimic. The structures reveal that c-di-GMP releases an auto-inhibited state of the enzyme. A salt bridge stabilizes one of the signature c-di-GMP-binding Arg residues in a position to tether a conserved 'gating loop' in front of the active site. The binding of c-di-GMP releases the tether and allows substrate to access the active site. Additionally, the UDP-bound structure reveals an additional role for the 'gating loop' in coordinating substrate at the active site. Functional experiments confirm the structural interpretation by revealing that disruption of the auto-inhibitory salt bridge by mutagenesis generates a constitutively-active cellulose synthase. The mechanistic insights presented here represent the first examples of how c-di-GMP allosterically modulates enzymatic functions.To address the mechanism by which BcsA-B transports cellulose across the IM, I use in crystallo enzymology with the c-di-GMP-bound BcsA-B crystals. Because crystallized BcsA-B is catalytically a...