Volume 272, Number 36, Issue of September 5, 1997 pp. 22417-22424
©1997 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

Cysteine Sulfinate Desulfinase, a NIFS-like Protein of Escherichia coli with Selenocysteine Lyase and Cysteine Desulfurase Activities
GENE CLONING, PURIFICATION, AND CHARACTERIZATION OF A NOVEL PYRIDOXAL ENZYME

(Received for publication, April 3, 1997, and in revised form, June 20, 1997)

Hisaaki Mihara , Tatsuo Kurihara , Tohru Yoshimura , Kenji Soda ^¶ and Nobuyoshi Esaki

From the  Laboratory of Microbial Biochemistry, Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University, Uji, Kyoto 611, Japan and the ^¶ Department of Biotechnology, Faculty of Engineering, Kansai University, 3-3-35 Yamate-Cho, Suita, Osaka 564, Japan

Selenocysteine lyase (EC 4.4.1.16) exclusively decomposes selenocysteine to alanine and elemental selenium, whereas cysteine desulfurase (NIFS protein) of Azotobacter vinelandii acts indiscriminately on both cysteine and selenocysteine to produce elemental sulfur and selenium respectively, and alanine. These proteins exhibit some sequence homology. The Escherichia coli genome contains three genes with sequence homology to nifS. We have cloned the gene mapped at 63.4 min in the chromosome and have expressed, purified to homogeneity, and characterized the gene product. The enzyme comprises two identical subunits with 401 amino acid residues (M_r 43,238) and contains pyridoxal 5-phosphate as a coenzyme. The enzyme catalyzes the removal of elemental sulfur and selenium atoms from L-cysteine, L-cystine, L-selenocysteine, and L-selenocystine to produce L-alanine. Because L-cysteine sulfinic acid was desulfinated to form L-alanine as the preferred substrate, we have named this new enzyme cysteine sulfinate desulfinase. Mutant enzymes having alanine substituted for each of the four cysteinyl residues (Cys-100, Cys-176, Cys-323, and Cys-358) were all active. Cys-358 corresponds to Cys-325 of A. vinelandii NIFS, which is conserved among all NIFS-like proteins and catalytically essential (Zheng, L., White, R. H., Cash, V. L., and Dean, D. R. (1994) Biochemistry 33, 4714-4720), is not required for cysteine sulfinate desulfinase. Thus, the enzyme is distinct from A. vinelandii NIFS in this respect.

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