![]()
|
|
||||||||
J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 279, Issue 41, 42359-42362, October 8, 2004
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

From the Department of Chemistry, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
Received for publication, June 28, 2004 , and in revised form, August 9, 2004.
| ABSTRACT |
|---|
|
|
|---|
| INTRODUCTION |
|---|
|
|
|---|
Both classes of synthetases have been shown to possess editing functions. Class I isoleucyl-tRNA synthetase, leucyl-tRNA synthetase, and valyl-tRNA synthetase use the highly conserved connective polypeptide 1 (CP1) domain to edit a variety of noncognate amino acids (613). Among class II synthetases, alanyl-tRNA synthetase (AlaRS) (14, 15), prolyl-tRNA synthetase (ProRS) (1619), and threonyl-tRNA synthetase (ThrRS) (20, 21) possess editing domains that have been shown to hydrolyze Gly- and Ser-tRNAAla, Ala-tRNAPro, and Ser-tRNAThr, respectively. The internal editing domain of AlaRS and the N-terminal editing domain of ThrRS share sequence similarity (20, 22), while the editing domain of ProRS (INS) appears to be unique, sharing no sequence homology to any of the other known synthetase editing domains (17, 23).
Whereas the CP1 editing domain of class I synthetases is highly conserved through evolution, phylogenetic analyses have revealed that the class II-specific editing domain found in all AlaRSs and bacterial and eukaryotic ThrRSs is missing in archaeabacterial ThrRSs. However, a distinct domain for editing has recently been identified in the latter (22, 24). In the case of class II ProRS, the INS domain is only found in bacteria and is missing in most eukaryotes, archaeabacteria, and some bacteria. A region of weak homology to the INS has been identified at the N terminus of lower eukaryotic ProRS (23). How species that lack a ProRS editing domain achieve the level of amino acid specificity required for the cell to survive is not known. Recently, a homolog of the ProRS INS domain (23, 25), present in all three kingdoms of life, was shown to possess hydrolytic editing activity (18, 26). In particular, it was demonstrated that the Haemophilus influenzae YbaK protein specifically hydrolyzes Ala-tRNAPro but not Pro-tRNAPro in vitro (18). H. influenzae is closely related to Escherichia coli (27) and therefore possesses a bacterial type ProRS containing a canonical editing domain with high sequence identity (73%) to the E. coli INS domain. In addition, the H. influenzae tRNAPro/UGG sequence is 96% identical to E. coli tRNAPro/UGG, with only three differences at nonconserved positions in the T
C arm.
The function of the H. influenzae YbaK protein in the cell is not known. Its relatively weak Ala-tRNAPro editing activity appears to be redundant with that of full-length ProRS. Interestingly, efficient editing of Ala-tRNAPro was recently demonstrated by another INS domain homolog (designated PrdX) from Clostridium sticklandii, a bacterium that lacks a ProRS editing domain (26). This finding and the correlation with the occurrence of the prdX gene in organisms that lack an editing domain in the context of ProRS suggest that editing of Ala-tRNAPro is performed by the autonomous editing domain in vivo.
ProRSs from all three domains of life have been shown to misactivate cysteine and to misacylate cysteine onto tRNAPro (19, 28, 29, 30). Moreover, the x-ray crystal structures of ProRS from Methanothermobacter thermautotrophicus complexed with Cys- and Pro-sulfamoyl-adenylates show that ProRS accommodates both adenylates in a very similar manner (31). This finding provides structural support for the biochemical data showing that discrimination of Pro and Cys does not occur at the level of amino acid binding or adenylate synthesis. Surprisingly, Cys-tRNAPro is resistant to editing by ProRS (2830). Therefore, a double-sieve mechanism (3234) does not appear to be sufficient in this case and an important open question is the mechanism of Cys-tRNAPro editing in the cell. In this work, we investigate the aminoacyl-tRNA specificity of the H. influenzae YbaK protein and provide evidence for the existence of a third sieve that functions in the editing of Cys-tRNAPro.
| EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES |
|---|
|
|
|---|
Enzyme PreparationWild-type (WT) E. coli ProRS, E. coli INS, WT E. coli AlaRS, E. coli C666A/Q584H AlaRS (AlaRS-CQ), and WT human lysyl-tRNA synthetase (LysRS) were purified using Talon cobalt affinity resins (Clontech) as described previously (18, 36). H. influenzae YbaK protein was purified from E. coli B834 cells containing pCYB2_HI1434 using the IMPACTTM I system (New England Biolabs) as described before (18, 23). The YbaK K46A point mutant was created from plasmid pET15b_HI1434 encoding the wild-type H. influenzae YbaK protein using the QuikChange site-directed mutagenesis kit (Stratagene). Expression of the mutant protein was induced with 1 mM isopropyl
-D-thiogalactopyranoside in BL21(DE3)pLysS cells (Novagen). The protein was purified using Ni2+-NTA resin (Qiagen) according to the manufacturer's protocol, followed by removal of the His tag using the thrombin-cleavage capture kit (Novagen). The protein was concentrated using Centricon 10 concentrators (Amicon) and stored in 10 mM HEPES (pH 8.0), 0.25 M NaCl, 0.05 mM EDTA, 0.05% Triton, 5mM dithiothreitol, and 40% glycerol. The concentrations of AlaRS-CQ, LysRS, INS, and YbaK proteins were determined by the Bradford assay (37). The concentrations of WT AlaRS and WT ProRS were based on the active site titration assay (38).
Aminoacylation Assays and Preparation of Aminoacyl-tRNAsAminoacylation assays with 3H-labeled amino acids were performed at room temperature as described previously using purified tRNA transcripts prepared in vitro (15, 39, 40). Briefly, E. coli AlaRS-CQ (3.4 µM) was used to aminoacylate the E. coli G1:C72/U70 tRNAPro variant (5.0 µM) in the presence of both [3H]Ser (9.1 µM) and cold Ser (0.5 mM) in buffer containing 50 mM HEPES (pH 7.5), 4 mM ATP, 20 mM KCl, 20 mM
-mercaptoethanol, 25 mM MgCl2, and 0.1 mg/ml bovine serum albumin. E. coli ProRS (0.5 µM) was used to aminoacylate [35S]Cys (50.9 µM) onto E. coli tRNAPro (10 µM) in reaction buffer containing 20 mM Tris-HCl (pH 7.5), 20 mM KCl, 10 mM MgCl2, 25 mM dithiothreitol, and 2 mM ATP as described previously (41). In some experiments, E. coli ProRS was premixed with the H. influenzae YbaK protein before initiating the charging reaction.
To prepare aminoacyl-tRNAs, [3H]Ala and [3H]Lys were misaminoacylated onto the E. coli G1:C72/U70 tRNAPro variant (8 µM) using WT E. coli AlaRS (2 µM) and WT human LysRS (4 µM), respectively, in the 3H-labeled amino acid buffer given above (16). [35S]Cys was mischarged onto E. coli tRNAPro (8 µM) using E. coli ProRS (8 µM) in the [35S]Cys buffer described above. [3H]Ser-tRNAAla and [3H]Gly-tRNAAla were synthesized by mischarging E. coli tRNAAla (8 µM) using E. coli AlaRS-CQ (5.7 µM) as described previously (15). The mischarged tRNAs were purified by repeated phenol extractions, followed by ethanol precipitation. The aminoacyl-tRNAs were quantified by scintillation counting and stored at 20 °C in 50 mM KPO4 (pH 5.0).
Deacylation AssaysDeacylation assays were carried out at room temperature according to published conditions (16, 29). Reactions contained
0.8 µM [3H]Gly-tRNAAla, 1.2 µM [3H]Ser-tRNAAla, 0.5 µM [3H]Ala-tRNAPro, 0.1 µM [3H]Lys-tRNAPro, or 0.2 µM [35S]Cys-tRNAPro and were initiated with the amount of protein indicated in the figure legends. In each case, a background reaction was carried out in which buffer (0.15 M KPO4 (pH 7.0)) was used to initiate the reaction. Each aminoacyl-tRNA had its own background reaction, although for clarity only one representative data set is shown in the figures.
| RESULTS |
|---|
|
|
|---|
70% acceptor activity on the basis of plateau-level aminoacylation assays with cognate amino acid. Our initial deacylation assays used high concentrations of purified YbaK protein (21 µM), similar to previous studies (18). As shown in Fig. 1, under these conditions we observe similar levels of deacylation of Ala-tRNAPro and Ser- and Gly-tRNAAla. In contrast, hydrolysis of Lys-tRNAPro was not observed, which is in agreement with previous studies using E. coli ProRS (16). Strikingly, the YbaK protein was capable of rapidly hydrolyzing Cys-tRNAPro under these conditions (Fig. 1).
|
90%) of Cys-tRNAPro was observed after 20 min, but hydrolysis of the other aminoacyl-tRNAs, including Ala-tRNAPro, was not detectable (Fig. 2A). In contrast, under similar reaction conditions, E. coli ProRS hydrolyzed Ala-tRNAPro but not Cys-tRNAPro (Fig. 2B). Thus, the YbaK protein appears to be specific for Cys-tRNAPro, while ProRS is specific for Ala-tRNAPro.
|
To determine whether the YbaK protein was functional in the presence of ProRS, aminoacylation assays were performed with E. coli ProRS in the absence and presence of varying concentrations of the YbaK protein. A concentration-dependent decrease in aminoacylation was observed in the presence of YbaK, with almost complete (
90%) elimination of charging achieved at a ProRS:YbaK ratio of 1:4 (Fig. 3). Thus, the YbaK protein performs its trans-editing reaction in the presence of a functional ProRS, thereby preventing Cys-tRNAPro from being used in protein synthesis.
|
|
| DISCUSSION |
|---|
|
|
|---|
Intriguingly, previous studies suggest that not all INS domain homologs can hydrolyze Cys-tRNAPro as demonstrated here for the H. influenzae YbaK protein. In particular, a recent report demonstrated selective and efficient hydrolysis of Ala-tRNAPro but not Cys-tRNAPro by the INS domain homolog from the bacterium C. sticklandii (CSPrdX) (26). The ProRS expressed from C. sticklandii is classified as "eukaryotic like" and lacks the bacterial-specific editing domain. Unlike H. influenzae, which possesses both a ProRS with a canonical editing domain responsible for eliminating Ala-tRNAPro and a YbaK protein with Cys-specific editing activity, the CSPrdX protein appears to be specific for Ala-tRNAPro. Thus, the data obtained to date suggest the existence of at least two distinct classes of free-standing aa-tRNAPro trans-editing factors, i.e. those with Ala specificity (ProX) and those with Cys specificity (YbaK).
The mechanism for Cys-tRNAPro editing in C. sticklandii or in other species that appear to lack both a functional editing domain within ProRS and a YbaK protein (such as Methanococcus jannaschii and Saccharomyces cerevisiae) is still unknown. Some species may contain a ProRS that is more specific to start with and thus do not require editing (26). However, this is unlikely to be the explanation in the case of M. jannaschii ProRS, which very efficiently activates Cys and mischarges it onto tRNAPro in vitro (19, 28, 30, 42). An alternative mechanism that has been proposed involves regulation of intracellular Pro and Cys levels, which when combined with the higher Km for Cys over Pro, may prevent mischarging (30). Finally, an additional unidentified factor present in these species may prevent Cys-tRNAPro formation or function to hydrolyze it, as was demonstrated here for the H. influenzae YbaK protein.
In conclusion, the double-sieve mechanism for editing does not appear to be sufficient to eliminate all misacylated tRNAPro species in some organisms. In particular, some bacteria, which contain a ProRS editing domain that clears Ala-tRNAPro, additionally require an autonomous editing domain paralog that is specific for editing Cys-tRNAPro. Although we have demonstrated that the highly conserved residue Lys46 is critical for the editing activity, the detailed mechanism of trans-editing, as well as the molecular basis for the altered amino acid specificity of the free-standing editing domain, remain to be determined. A recent search using the Conserved Domain Architecture Retrieval Tool (CDART available at ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) identified 143 ProRSs containing a sequence homologous to the H. influenzae YbaK protein either as an internal domain or an N-terminal extension and an additional 213 homologous proteins expressed as independent domains. Additional studies of these intriguing ProRS paralogs from a variety of organisms will be required to gain a better understanding of how specific aminoacyl-tRNA synthesis is achieved in living cells.
| FOOTNOTES |
|---|
To whom correspondence should be addressed: Dept. of Chemistry, University of Minnesota, 207 Pleasant St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455. Tel.: 612-624-0286; Fax: 612-626-7541; E-mail: musier{at}chem.umn.edu.
1 The abbreviations used are: aaRS, aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase; CP1, connective polypeptide 1; ThrRS, threonyl-tRNA synthetase; ProRS, prolyl-tRNA synthetase; AlaRS, alanyl-tRNA synthetase; INS, insertion domain; AlaRS-CQ, C666A/Q584H-AlaRS ![]()
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
|---|
| REFERENCES |
|---|
|
|
|---|
This article has been cited by other articles:
![]() |
K. E. Splan, M. E. Ignatov, and K. Musier-Forsyth Transfer RNA Modulates the Editing Mechanism Used by Class II Prolyl-tRNA Synthetase J. Biol. Chem., March 14, 2008; 283(11): 7128 - 7134. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
C. D. Hausmann, M. Praetorius-Ibba, and M. Ibba An aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase:elongation factor complex for substrate channeling in archaeal translation Nucleic Acids Res., September 25, 2007; 35(18): 6094 - 6102. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
J. SternJohn, S. Hati, P. G. Siliciano, and K. Musier-Forsyth Restoring species-specific posttransfer editing activity to a synthetase with a defunct editing domain PNAS, February 13, 2007; 104(7): 2127 - 2132. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
B. Zhu, M.-W. Zhao, G. Eriani, and E.-D. Wang A present-day aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase with ancestral editing properties RNA, January 1, 2007; 13(1): 15 - 21. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
V. A. Karkhanis, M. T. Boniecki, K. Poruri, and S. A. Martinis A Viable Amino Acid Editing Activity in the Leucyl-tRNA Synthetase CP1-splicing Domain Is Not Required in the Yeast Mitochondria J. Biol. Chem., November 3, 2006; 281(44): 33217 - 33225. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
H. Roy, J. Ling, J. Alfonzo, and M. Ibba Loss of Editing Activity during the Evolution of Mitochondrial Phenylalanyl-tRNA Synthetase J. Biol. Chem., November 18, 2005; 280(46): 38186 - 38192. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
S. An and K. Musier-Forsyth Cys-tRNAPro Editing by Haemophilus influenzae YbaK via a Novel Synthetase{middle dot}YbaK{middle dot}tRNA Ternary Complex J. Biol. Chem., October 14, 2005; 280(41): 34465 - 34472. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
B. Ruan and D. Soll The Bacterial YbaK Protein Is a Cys-tRNAPro and Cys-tRNACys Deacylase J. Biol. Chem., July 8, 2005; 280(27): 25887 - 25891. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HOME | HELP | FEEDBACK | SUBSCRIPTIONS | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |
| All ASBMB Journals | Molecular and Cellular Proteomics |
| Journal of Lipid Research | ASBMB Today |