Skip to main content
PMC home page
Journal of Bacteriology logoLink to Journal of Bacteriology
. 1992 Aug;174(16):5258–5264. doi: 10.1128/jb.174.16.5258-5264.1992

The essential Escherichia coli msgB gene, a multicopy suppressor of a temperature-sensitive allele of the heat shock gene grpE, is identical to dapE.

B Wu 1, C Georgopoulos 1, D Ang 1
PMCID: PMC206360  PMID: 1644751

Abstract

The grpE gene product is one of three Escherichia coli heat shock proteins (DnaK, DnaJ, and GrpE) that are essential for both bacteriophage lambda DNA replication and bacterial growth at all temperatures. In an effort to determine the role of GrpE and to identify other factors that it may interact with, we isolated multicopy suppressors of the grpE280 point mutation, as judged by their ability to reverse the temperature-sensitive phenotype of grpE280. Here we report the characterization of one of them, designated msgB. The msgB gene maps at approximately 53 min on the E. coli chromosome. The minimal gene possesses an open reading frame that encodes a protein with a predicted size of 41,269 M(r). This open reading frame was confirmed the correct one by direct amino-terminal sequence analysis of the overproduced msgB gene product. Genetic experiments demonstrated that msgB is essential for E. coli growth in the temperature range of 22 to 37 degrees C. Through a sequence homology search, MsgB was shown to be identical to N-succinyl-L-diaminopimelic acid desuccinylase (the dapE gene product), which participates in the diaminopimelic acid-lysine pathway involved in cell wall biosynthesis. Consistent with this finding, the msgB null allele mutant is viable only when the growth medium is supplemented with diaminopimelic acid. These results suggest that GrpE may have a previously unsuspected function(s) in cell wall biosynthesis in E. coli.

Full text

PDF
5262

Images in this article

5261Image
on p.5261
5262Image
on p.5262

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Ang D., Chandrasekhar G. N., Zylicz M., Georgopoulos C. Escherichia coli grpE gene codes for heat shock protein B25.3, essential for both lambda DNA replication at all temperatures and host growth at high temperature. J Bacteriol. 1986 Jul;167(1):25–29. doi: 10.1128/jb.167.1.25-29.1986. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Ang D., Georgopoulos C. The heat-shock-regulated grpE gene of Escherichia coli is required for bacterial growth at all temperatures but is dispensable in certain mutant backgrounds. J Bacteriol. 1989 May;171(5):2748–2755. doi: 10.1128/jb.171.5.2748-2755.1989. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Ang D., Liberek K., Skowyra D., Zylicz M., Georgopoulos C. Biological role and regulation of the universally conserved heat shock proteins. J Biol Chem. 1991 Dec 25;266(36):24233–24236. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Bouvier J., Richaud C., Higgins W., Bögler O., Stragier P. Cloning, characterization, and expression of the dapE gene of Escherichia coli. J Bacteriol. 1992 Aug;174(16):5265–5271. doi: 10.1128/jb.174.16.5265-5271.1992. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Bukau B., Walker G. C. Mutations altering heat shock specific subunit of RNA polymerase suppress major cellular defects of E. coli mutants lacking the DnaK chaperone. EMBO J. 1990 Dec;9(12):4027–4036. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1990.tb07624.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Casadaban M. J. Transposition and fusion of the lac genes to selected promoters in Escherichia coli using bacteriophage lambda and Mu. J Mol Biol. 1976 Jul 5;104(3):541–555. doi: 10.1016/0022-2836(76)90119-4. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Dente L., Cesareni G., Cortese R. pEMBL: a new family of single stranded plasmids. Nucleic Acids Res. 1983 Mar 25;11(6):1645–1655. doi: 10.1093/nar/11.6.1645. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Fellay R., Frey J., Krisch H. Interposon mutagenesis of soil and water bacteria: a family of DNA fragments designed for in vitro insertional mutagenesis of gram-negative bacteria. Gene. 1987;52(2-3):147–154. doi: 10.1016/0378-1119(87)90041-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Georgopoulos C. P. Bacterial mutants in which the gene N function of bacteriophage lambda is blocked have an altered RNA polymerase. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1971 Dec;68(12):2977–2981. doi: 10.1073/pnas.68.12.2977. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Groisman E. A., Pagratis N., Casadaban M. J. Genome mapping and protein coding region identification using bacteriophage Mu. Gene. 1991 Mar 1;99(1):1–7. doi: 10.1016/0378-1119(91)90026-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Henikoff S. Unidirectional digestion with exonuclease III creates targeted breakpoints for DNA sequencing. Gene. 1984 Jun;28(3):351–359. doi: 10.1016/0378-1119(84)90153-7. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Kohara Y., Akiyama K., Isono K. The physical map of the whole E. coli chromosome: application of a new strategy for rapid analysis and sorting of a large genomic library. Cell. 1987 Jul 31;50(3):495–508. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(87)90503-4. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Kushner S. R., Nagaishi H., Templin A., Clark A. J. Genetic recombination in Escherichia coli: the role of exonuclease I. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1971 Apr;68(4):824–827. doi: 10.1073/pnas.68.4.824. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Laemmli U. K. Cleavage of structural proteins during the assembly of the head of bacteriophage T4. Nature. 1970 Aug 15;227(5259):680–685. doi: 10.1038/227680a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Lerner C. G., Inouye M. Low copy number plasmids for regulated low-level expression of cloned genes in Escherichia coli with blue/white insert screening capability. Nucleic Acids Res. 1990 Aug 11;18(15):4631–4631. doi: 10.1093/nar/18.15.4631. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Liberek K., Marszalek J., Ang D., Georgopoulos C., Zylicz M. Escherichia coli DnaJ and GrpE heat shock proteins jointly stimulate ATPase activity of DnaK. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1991 Apr 1;88(7):2874–2878. doi: 10.1073/pnas.88.7.2874. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Liberek K., Skowyra D., Zylicz M., Johnson C., Georgopoulos C. The Escherichia coli DnaK chaperone, the 70-kDa heat shock protein eukaryotic equivalent, changes conformation upon ATP hydrolysis, thus triggering its dissociation from a bound target protein. J Biol Chem. 1991 Aug 5;266(22):14491–14496. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Lin Y. K., Myhrman R., Schrag M. L., Gelb M. H. Bacterial N-succinyl-L-diaminopimelic acid desuccinylase. Purification, partial characterization, and substrate specificity. J Biol Chem. 1988 Feb 5;263(4):1622–1627. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Lipinska B., Fayet O., Baird L., Georgopoulos C. Identification, characterization, and mapping of the Escherichia coli htrA gene, whose product is essential for bacterial growth only at elevated temperatures. J Bacteriol. 1989 Mar;171(3):1574–1584. doi: 10.1128/jb.171.3.1574-1584.1989. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Oden K. L., DeVeaux L. C., Vibat C. R., Cronan J. E., Jr, Gennis R. B. Genomic replacement in Escherichia coli K-12 using covalently closed circular plasmid DNA. Gene. 1990 Nov 30;96(1):29–36. doi: 10.1016/0378-1119(90)90337-q. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Pearson W. R., Lipman D. J. Improved tools for biological sequence comparison. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1988 Apr;85(8):2444–2448. doi: 10.1073/pnas.85.8.2444. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  22. Prentki P., Krisch H. M. In vitro insertional mutagenesis with a selectable DNA fragment. Gene. 1984 Sep;29(3):303–313. doi: 10.1016/0378-1119(84)90059-3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  23. Raina S., Georgopoulos C. A new Escherichia coli heat shock gene, htrC, whose product is essential for viability only at high temperatures. J Bacteriol. 1990 Jun;172(6):3417–3426. doi: 10.1128/jb.172.6.3417-3426.1990. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  24. Saito H., Nakamura Y., Uchida H. A transducing lambda phage carrying grpE, a bacterial gene necessary for lambda DNA replication, and two ribosomal protein genes, rpsP (S16) and rplS (L19). Mol Gen Genet. 1978 Oct 24;165(3):247–256. doi: 10.1007/BF00332523. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  25. Saito H., Uchida H. Initiation of the DNA replication of bacteriophage lambda in Escherichia coli K12. J Mol Biol. 1977 Jun 15;113(1):1–25. doi: 10.1016/0022-2836(77)90038-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  26. Sanger F., Nicklen S., Coulson A. R. DNA sequencing with chain-terminating inhibitors. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1977 Dec;74(12):5463–5467. doi: 10.1073/pnas.74.12.5463. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  27. Sell S. M., Eisen C., Ang D., Zylicz M., Georgopoulos C. Isolation and characterization of dnaJ null mutants of Escherichia coli. J Bacteriol. 1990 Sep;172(9):4827–4835. doi: 10.1128/jb.172.9.4827-4835.1990. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  28. Simons R. W., Houman F., Kleckner N. Improved single and multicopy lac-based cloning vectors for protein and operon fusions. Gene. 1987;53(1):85–96. doi: 10.1016/0378-1119(87)90095-3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  29. Singer M., Baker T. A., Schnitzler G., Deischel S. M., Goel M., Dove W., Jaacks K. J., Grossman A. D., Erickson J. W., Gross C. A. A collection of strains containing genetically linked alternating antibiotic resistance elements for genetic mapping of Escherichia coli. Microbiol Rev. 1989 Mar;53(1):1–24. doi: 10.1128/mr.53.1.1-24.1989. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  30. Skowyra D., Georgopoulos C., Zylicz M. The E. coli dnaK gene product, the hsp70 homolog, can reactivate heat-inactivated RNA polymerase in an ATP hydrolysis-dependent manner. Cell. 1990 Sep 7;62(5):939–944. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(90)90268-j. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  31. Studier F. W., Moffatt B. A. Use of bacteriophage T7 RNA polymerase to direct selective high-level expression of cloned genes. J Mol Biol. 1986 May 5;189(1):113–130. doi: 10.1016/0022-2836(86)90385-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  32. Zhou Y. N., Kusukawa N., Erickson J. W., Gross C. A., Yura T. Isolation and characterization of Escherichia coli mutants that lack the heat shock sigma factor sigma 32. J Bacteriol. 1988 Aug;170(8):3640–3649. doi: 10.1128/jb.170.8.3640-3649.1988. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  33. Zylicz M., Ang D., Georgopoulos C. The grpE protein of Escherichia coli. Purification and properties. J Biol Chem. 1987 Dec 25;262(36):17437–17442. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  34. Zylicz M., Ang D., Liberek K., Georgopoulos C. Initiation of lambda DNA replication with purified host- and bacteriophage-encoded proteins: the role of the dnaK, dnaJ and grpE heat shock proteins. EMBO J. 1989 May;8(5):1601–1608. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1989.tb03544.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Journal of Bacteriology are provided here courtesy of American Society for Microbiology (ASM)

RESOURCES