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Journal of Bacteriology, November 2008, p. 7591-7594, Vol. 190, No. 22
0021-9193/08/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JB.01070-08
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Identification of Genes Encoding the Folate- and Thiamine-Binding Membrane Proteins in Firmicutes
,
Aymerick Eudes,1,
Guus B. Erkens,2,
Dirk J. Slotboom,2
Dmitry A. Rodionov,3,4
Valeria Naponelli,5 and
Andrew D. Hanson1*
Horticultural Sciences Department, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611,1
Department of Biochemistry, University of Groningen, Groningen Biomolecular Science and Biotechnology Institute, Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands,2
Burnham Institute for Medical Research, La Jolla, California 92037,3
Institute for Information Transmission Problems RAS, Moscow 127994, Russia,4
Food Science and Human Nutrition Department, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 326115
Received 30 July 2008/
Accepted 27 August 2008

ABSTRACT
Genes encoding high-affinity folate- and thiamine-binding proteins
(FolT, ThiT) were identified in the
Lactobacillus casei genome,
expressed in
Lactococcus lactis, and functionally characterized.
Similar genes occur in many Firmicutes, sometimes next to folate
or thiamine salvage genes. Most
thiT genes are preceded by a
thiamine riboswitch.

TEXT
The folate and thiamine transport systems of
Lactobacillus casei were partially characterized 30 years ago by Henderson and colleagues
(
8,
9,
11,
12). These systems were shown to involve two small
membrane proteins for specific substrate binding—one for
folate and the other for thiamine—as well as an uncharacterized
component shared by both systems.
To identify genes encoding the binding proteins (FolT and ThiT), we used the AACompIdent tool on the ExPASy server (27) to search the L. casei (strain ATCC 334) genome for open reading frames with amino acid compositions and molecular masses matching those published for FolT and ThiT (9, 12). The best match for FolT was LSEI_2252, a 19.0-kDa protein with five predicted transmembrane domains (Fig. 1A). LSEI_2252 has homologs in other Firmicutes, and in some cases, the corresponding genes are adjacent to folC (Fig. 1B). FolC is a salvage enzyme that mediates polyglutamylation of folates (2). The best match for ThiT was LSEI_1757, a 21.2-kDa protein with six predicted transmembrane domains, which belongs to the YuaJ family (InterPro accession number IPR012651) of predicted, uncharacterized thiamine transporters in the Bacillus/Clostridium group (20). LSEI_1757 is 32% identical to Bacillus subtilis YuaJ (Fig. 1C). In several Firmicutes, the thiT gene forms a putative operon with the thiamine pyrophosphokinase thiN gene (Fig. 1D). Like FolC, ThiN is a salvage enzyme that converts thiamine to its active pyrophosphate form (15).
To investigate whether
folT and
thiT indeed code for vitamin-binding
proteins, the
folT and
thiT genes were PCR amplified from
L. casei genomic DNA, cloned between the NcoI and SstI sites of
pNZ8048, a vector carrying the nisin-inducible
nisA promoter
(
14), and introduced into
Lactococcus lactis strain NZ9000 (
14).
Transformants were grown at 30°C in M17 medium (Oxoid, Basingstoke,
United Kingdom), supplemented with 1.0% (wt/vol) glucose, and
5 µg/ml chloramphenicol. Nisin was added when the optical
density at 600 nm reached 0.7 (
14), and cells were harvested
8 to 15 h later. Sodium dodecyl phosphate-polyacrylamide gel
electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) analysis of membrane fractions prepared
by differential centrifugation (
23) showed that FolT and ThiT
were abundantly expressed (Fig.
2A) and had apparent molecular
masses (18 and 22 kDa, respectively) near those predicted. Cells
expressing FolT or ThiT, and empty-vector controls, were assayed
for binding of
3H-labeled folates or thiamine after de-energization
with 2-deoxyglucose to suppress interference by endogenous uptake
systems (Fig.
2B to E). Cells expressing FolT bound large amounts
of (6
S)-[
3H]folinic acid or [
3H]folic acid (

17 pmol/mg protein),
and those expressing ThiT bound a similar amount of [
3H]thiamine.
Adding a polyglutamyl tail of 2 to 4 residues to [
3H]folic acid
(
16) markedly reduced binding, indicating that polyglutamyl
folates are poor substrates for FolT, which is consistent with
results from experiments using
L. casei cells (
22). In all cases,
vitamin binding approached a plateau within 5 s and was rapidly
reversed by adding an excess of unlabeled substrate. The observed
vitamin acquisition, thus, has the characteristics of a binding
process rather than those of an uptake process.
For further characterization, FolT and ThiT were tagged with
N-terminal His
8 sequences. FolT-His and ThiT-His were produced
in
L. lactis as described above, except that cells were cultured
in chemically defined medium (
17,
19) without folic acid (for
FolT-His) or thiamine (for ThiT-His) and harvested 3 h after
induction. Membrane vesicles were prepared (
24), and proteins
were solubilized with dodecyl-β-
D-maltoside (DDM) and purified
to homogeneity by using nickel-Sepharose and gel filtration
chromatography (
3) (Fig.
3A and B). Vitamin binding was measured
via quenching of intrinsic tryptophan fluorescence, using a
Spex Fluorolog 322 spectrofluorometer (Jobin Yvon) and a 1-ml
stirred cuvette at 25°C. The FolT-His and ThiT-His concentrations
were 100 to 500 nM, and solutions of folinic acid, folic acid,
or thiamine were added in 0.5- to 2-µl steps. Fluorescence
was monitored at 340 nm for 20 to 30 s (excitation at 280 nm)
after each substrate addition. Data were analyzed as described
previously (
3,
25). Representative data for ThiT in the presence
of increasing concentrations of thiamine are shown in Fig.
3C,
and the corresponding fluorescence titration curve is shown
in Fig.
3D. Comparable titration curves for FolT with (6
S)-folinic
acid and folic acid are given in Fig.
2E and F; (6
R)-folinic
acid (the unnatural isomer) produced no quenching. The proteins
bind their substrates with high affinity. The dissociation constants
of ThiT for thiamine (0.5 nM) and FolT for folic acid (9 nM)
(Fig.
3) are within the range of values reported for
L. casei cells (1 to 36 nM for folate binding and 0.03 to 10 nM for thiamine
binding) (
6,
7,
9,
12). The binding stoichiometries calculated
from these data were far lower than 1:1 (0.17:1 for ThiT and
0.08:1 for FolT), compared to those calculated from the data
for FolT and ThiT purified from
L. casei (
9,
12). A likely explanation
is that the substrates copurified with the binding proteins,
thereby obscuring binding sites, as occurred with the purified
high-affinity riboflavin-binding protein RibU (
3). Absorption
spectra of purified FolT confirmed that substrate had indeed
been copurified (not shown).
Analysis of prokaryotic genomes using the SEED comparative genomics
resource (
18) revealed that ThiT and FolT homologs occur commonly
and almost exclusively in Firmicutes, many of which are pathogens.
The multiple sequence alignments and maximum-likelihood phylogenetic
trees for the FolT and ThiT protein families are shown in Fig.
S1 to S3 in the supplemental material. The FolT family is substantially
more diverse; while the majority of FolT proteins have five
predicted transmembrane domains, two subgroups have insertions
that add two more such domains, and a third subgroup has a C-terminal
extension similar to aspartyl-tRNA amidotransferase subunit
C (see Fig. S1A in the supplemental material). Folate-binding
activity was verified experimentally for FolT proteins from
three pathogens (
Mycoplasma capricolum,
Clostridium novyi, and
Streptococcus mutans) by expression in
L. lactis cells and by
measuring [
3H]folinic acid binding as above (Fig.
4). Two of
these bacteria,
C. novyi and
S. mutans, have complete folate
biosynthesis pathways (
2), as do various other pathogenic Firmicutes
with
folT genes, including
Bacillus anthracis and
Clostridium botulinum. It is likely that such organisms can both make and
take up folates and that their folate transport capacity—which
was hitherto unsuspected—confers intrinsic resistance
to antibiotics targeting the folate pathway, as in malaria parasites
(
26).
Most of the genes encoding ThiT proteins, including that of
L. casei, were found to be preceded by a thiamine pyrophosphate
(TPP) riboswitch (see Fig. S1B in the supplemental material),
and indeed, the ThiT/YuaJ family was previously predicted to
participate in thiamine transport based on computational identification
of these riboswitches (
20). A marked feature of
L. casei ThiT
is its almost total repression by high levels of thiamine in
the medium (
8). TPP riboswitches located in 3' noncoding gene
regions attenuate expression of downstream genes upon binding
TPP (
20,
28), which readily suggests a mechanism for the observed
repression.
The identification of the genes encoding the folate- and thiamine-binding proteins of L. casei and other Firmicutes opens the way for dissection of the corresponding transport systems at the molecular level. These systems are undoubtedly novel, as FolT and ThiT are integral membrane proteins without characterized homologs. In terms of size and hydrophobicity (but not sequence), they resemble an emerging group of integral membrane proteins implicated in vitamin and trace metal uptake. These include the following: RibU of Lactococcus lactis, involved in riboflavin uptake (3); BioY of Rhodobacter capsulatus, a component of a biotin uptake system (5); and CbiM and NikM, involved in uptake of cobalt and nickel (21). The latter three systems all include a characteristic transmembrane protein (e.g., BioN) and an ATPase similar to those of ABC-type transporters (e.g., BioM), both encoded by genes adjacent on the chromosome to genes encoding the FolT/ThiT-like component. Although there are no bioN- and bioM-related genes linked to folT or thiT, it is reasonable to infer that they lie elsewhere in the genome, given the evidence that L. casei FolT and ThiT require other, shared components to form an active transport system and that the energy source is ATP hydrolysis (10, 11). And indeed, the L. casei genome contains a gene cluster encoding homologs of BioN (LSEI_2472) and BioM (LSEI_2473 and LSEI_2474), which are thus candidates for shared components of the folate and thiamine transporters.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Robert Burne (University of Florida) for
Streptococcus mutans genomic DNA and Shibin Zhou (Johns Hopkins University
School of Medicine) for
Clostridium novyi genomic DNA.
This project was supported by National Institutes of Health grant R01 GM071382 (to A.D.H.), by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (vidi grant to D.J.S.), and by an endowment from the C.V. Griffin, Sr. Foundation.

FOOTNOTES
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: University of Florida, Horticultural Sciences Department, P.O. Box 110690, Gainesville, FL 32611. Phone: (352) 392-1928. Fax: (352) 392-5653. E-mail:
adha{at}ufl.edu 
Published ahead of print on 5 September 2008. 
Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://jb.asm.org/. 
A.E. and G.B.E. contributed equally to the paper. 

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Journal of Bacteriology, November 2008, p. 7591-7594, Vol. 190, No. 22
0021-9193/08/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JB.01070-08
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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