Skip to main content
Log in

Cloning, expression and characterization of glucose-1-phosphate thymidylyltransferase (strmlA) from Thermus caldophilus

  • Published:
Biotechnology Letters Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

dTDP-l-Rhamnose biosynthetic gene cluster was cloned from Thermus caldophilus. A cluster of four open reading frames, strmlA, B, C and D, responsible for the production of dTDP-l-rhmanose, was screened from the genomic library. Thermophilic glucose-1-phosphate thymidylyltransferase, encoding 356 amino acids with a calculated molecular weight 38 kDa, was expressed under the control of the tac promoter in E. coli. The expressed enzyme, stRmlA is thermostable up to 70 °C and apparently retained its activity even up to 90 °C. It shares 73% sequence identity to glucose-1-phosphate thymidylyltransferase from Streptomyces argillaceus. Amino acid sequence comparison of stRmlA with ten glucose-1-phosphate thymidylyltransferases indicated higher number of unusual hydrophobic residues (A10, A58, A69, A252, V225, V257, V265, I242 and I246) and charged residues (D43, D160, D248, D249, D315, H124, H201, H283 and H354) in stRmlA.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Blankenfeldt W, Asunction M, Lam JS, Naismith JH (2000) The structural basis of the catalytic mechanism and regulation of glucose-1-phosphate thymidylyltransferase (RmlA). EMBO J. 19: 6652–6663.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bradford MM (1976) A rapid and sensitive method for the quantitation of microgram quantities of protein utilizing the principle of protein-dye binding. Anal. Biochem. 72: 248–254.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chakravarty S, Varadarajan R (2000) Elucidation of determinants of protein stability through genome sequence analysis. FEBS Lett. 470: 65–69.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giraud MF, Naismith JH (2000) The rhamnose pathway. Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol. 10: 687–696.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gregory AC, Singer, Donal A, Hickey (2003) Thermophilic prokaryotes have characteristic patterns of codon usage, amino acid composition and nucleotide content. Gene 23: 39–47.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gromiha MM, Oobatake M, Sarai A (1999) Important amino acid properties for enhanced thermostability from mesophilic to thermophilic proteins. Biophys. Chem. 82: 51–67.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haney P, Konisky J, Koretke KK, Luthey-Schulten Z, Wolynes PG (1997) Structural basis for thermostability and identification of potential active site residues for adenylate kinases from the archaeal genus Methanococcus. Protein Eng. 28: 117–130.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kim YS, Lee DS, Kwon ST (2002) Cloning and expression of the gene for inorganic pyrophosphatase of Thermus caldophilus GK24 and properties of the enzyme. J. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 12: 301–305.

    Google Scholar 

  • Koh S, Kim J, Shin HJ, Lee DH, Bae J, Kim D, Lee DS (2003) Mechanistic study of the intramolecular conversion of maltose to trehalose by Thermus caldophilus GK24 trehalose synthase. Carbohyd. Res. 338: 1339–1343.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kumar S, Tsai CJ, Nussinov R (2000) Factors enhancing protein stability. Protein Eng. 13: 179–191.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lennart L, Kaiser R, Reeves PR, Lindberg AA (1994) Purification, characterization and high performance liquid chromatography assay of salmonella glucose-1-phosphate cytidylyltransferase from the cloned rfbF gene. J. Biol. Chem. 269: 122–126.

    Google Scholar 

  • Li Q, Hobbs M, Reeves PR (2003) The variation of dTDP-L-rhamnose pathway genes in Vibrio cholerae. Microbiology 149: 2463–2474.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ma Y, Mills JA, Belisle JT, Vissa V, Howell M, Bowlin K, Scherman MS, McNeil M (1997) Determination of the pathway for rhamnose biosynthesis in mycobacteria: cloning, sequencing and expression of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis gene encoding ?-D-glucose-1-phosphate thymidylyltransferase. Microbiology 143: 937–945.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marolda CL, Valvano MA (1995) Genetic analysis of the dTDP-rhamnose biosynthesis region of the Escherichia coli VW187 (O7:K1) rfb gene cluster: identification of functional homologs of rfbB and rfbA in the rff cluster and correct location of the rffE gene. J. Bacteriol. 177: 5539–5546.

    Google Scholar 

  • Querol E, Perez-Pons JA, Mozo-Villarias A (1996) Analysis of protein conformational characteristics related to thermostability. Protein Eng. 9: 265–271.

    Google Scholar 

  • Russell RJ, Ferguson JM, Hough DW, Danson MJ, Taylor GL (1997) The crystal structure of citrate synthase from the hyperthermophilic archaeon Pyrococcus furiosus at 1.9 A resolution. Biochemistry 36: 9983–9994.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sambrook J, Russell DW (2001) Molecular Cloning, 3rd edn. Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taguchi H, Yamashita H, Matsuzawa, Ohta T (1982) Heat stable and fructose-1,6-bisphosphate-activated L-lactate dehydrogenase from an extremely thermophilic bacterium. J. Biochem. 91: 1343–1348.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thompson JD, Gibson TJ, Plewniak F, Jeanmougin F, Higgins DG (1997) The ClustalX windows interface: flexible strategies for multiple sequence alignment aided by quality analysis tools. Nucl. Acids Res. 24: 4876–4882.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weber K, Pringle JR, Osborn M (1971) Measurement of molecular weights by electrophoresis on SDS-polyacrylamide gel. Meth. Enzymol. 26: 3–27.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Parajuli, N., Lee, DS., Lee, H.C. et al. Cloning, expression and characterization of glucose-1-phosphate thymidylyltransferase (strmlA) from Thermus caldophilus . Biotechnology Letters 26, 437–442 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:BILE.0000018264.35237.86

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:BILE.0000018264.35237.86

Navigation