A high-throughput screen for ligand binding reveals the specificities of three amino acid chemoreceptors from Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae
File(s)McKellar_et_al-2015-Molecular_Microbiology.pdf (2.31 MB)
Published version
Author(s)
McKellar, JL
Minnell, JJ
Gerth, ML
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Chemoreceptors play a central role in chemotaxis, allowing bacteria to detect chemical gradients and bias their swimming behavior in order to navigate toward favorable environments. The genome of the kiwifruit pathogen, Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae (Psa) strain NZ-V13 encodes 43 predicted chemoreceptors, none of which has been characterized. We developed a high-throughput fluorescence-based thermal shift assay for identifying the signal molecules that are recognized by a given chemoreceptor ligand binding domain (LBD). Using this assay, we characterized the ligand binding profiles of three Psa homologs of the P. aeruginosa PAO1 amino acid chemoreceptors PctA, PctB and PctC. Each recombinant LBD was screened against 95 potential ligands. The three Psa homologs, named pscA, pscB and pscC (Psa chemoreceptors A, B and C) bound 3, 10 and 3 amino acids respectively. In each case, their binding profiles were distinct from their P. aeruginosa PAO1 homologs. Notably, Psa PscA-LBD only bound the acidic amino acids l-aspartate, d-aspartate and l-glutamate, whereas P. aeruginosa PctA-LBD binds all of the l-proteinogenic amino acids except for l-aspartate and l-glutamate. A combination of homology modeling, site-directed mutagenesis and functional screening identified a single amino acid residue in the Psa PscA-LBD (Ala146) that is critically important for determining its narrow specificity.
Date Issued
2015-03-06
Date Acceptance
2015-02-05
Citation
Molecular Microbiology, 2015, 96 (4), pp.694-707
ISSN
1365-2958
Publisher
Wiley
Start Page
694
End Page
707
Journal / Book Title
Molecular Microbiology
Volume
96
Issue
4
Copyright Statement
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
Subjects
Actinidia
Amino Acids
Aspartic Acid
Bacterial Proteins
Chemotaxis
Glutamic Acid
High-Throughput Screening Assays
Ligands
Models, Molecular
Mutagenesis, Site-Directed
Protein Structure, Tertiary
Pseudomonas aeruginosa
Pseudomonas syringae
Microbiology
06 Biological Sciences
11 Medical And Health Sciences
07 Agricultural And Veterinary Sciences
Publication Status
Published