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Volume 272, Number 19, Issue of May 9, 1997 pp. 12380-12383
©1997 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

Identification of a Novel Gene Cluster Participating in Menaquinone (Vitamin K₂) Biosynthesis
CLONING AND SEQUENCE DETERMINATION OF THE 2-HEPTAPRENYL-1,4-NAPHTHOQUINONE METHYLTRANSFERASE GENE OF BACILLUS STEAROTHERMOPHILUS

(Received for publication, February 10, 1997)

Ayumi Koike-Takeshita , Tanetoshi Koyama ^§ and Kyozo Ogura

From the  Bio Research Laboratory, Toyota Motor Corporation, Toyota-cho 1, Toyota, Aichi 471-71, the ^§ Department of Biochemistry and Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tohoku University, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-77, and the  Institute for Chemical Reaction Science, Tohoku University, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi 980-77, Japan

We recently described the isolation and sequence analysis of a DNA region containing the genes of Bacillus stearothermophilus heptaprenyl diphosphate synthase, which catalyzes the synthesis of the prenyl side chain of menaquinone-7 of this bacterium. Sequence analyses revealed the presence of three open reading frames (ORFs), designated as ORF-1, ORF-2, and ORF-3, and the structural genes of the heptaprenyl diphosphate synthase were proved to consist of ORF-1 (heps-1) and ORF-3 (heps-2) (Koike-Takeshita, A., Koyama, T., Obata, S., and Ogura, K. (1995) J. Biol. Chem. 270, 18396-18400). The predicted amino acid sequence of ORF-2 (234 amino acids) contains a methyltransferase consensus sequence and shows a 22% identity with UbiG of Escherichia coli, which catalyzes S-adenosyl-L-methionine-dependent methylation of 2-octaprenyl-3-methyl-5-hydroxy-6-methoxy-1,4-benzoquinone. These pieces of information led us to identify the ORF-2 gene product. The cell-free homogenate of the transformant of E. coli with an expression vector of ORF-2 catalyzed the incorporation of S-adenosyl-L-methionine into menaquinone-8, indicating that ORF-2 encodes 2-heptaprenyl-1,4-naphthoquinone methyltransferase, which participates in the terminal step of the menaquinone biosynthesis. Thus it is concluded that the ORF-1, ORF-2, and ORF-3 genes, designated heps-1, menG, and heps-2, respectively, form another cluster involved in menaquinone biosynthesis in addition to the cluster of menB, menC, menD, and menE already identified in the Bacillus subtilis and E. coli chromosomes.

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