title: Identification of a grpE heat-shock gene homolog in the archaeon Methanosarcina mazei.
abstract: A grpE heat-shock gene was found by sequencing in the genome of the methanogenic archaeon Methanosarcina mazei S-6. It is the first example of grpE from the phylogenetic domain Archaea. Since the other seven sequenced homologs are from the domain Bacteria, it may be concluded that grpE appeared early in evolution, before the two domains separated. The archaeal grpE is located in the dnaK locus, 431 base-pairs upstream of dnaK, which is followed downstream by the dnaJ gene. The organization of these three genes is known for Bacillus subtilis, Clostridium acetobutylicum, Borrelia burgdorferi and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The archaeal locus organization, grpE-dnaK-dnaJ, is similar to that of the former three bacteria, but different from that of M. tuberculosis. This, and sequence homologies, suggest that the M. tuberculosis GrpE belongs, together with the Streptomyces coelicolor homolog, to a subgroup of the GrpE proteins. The M. mazei grpE gene encodes a protein of 209 amino acid residues. The deduced amino acid sequence shows 28.2 to 34.6% identities, and 50.3 to 58.9 similarities (identities plus conservative substitutions) with the other six complete GrpE sequences available. These percentages fall within the range observed for the other GrpEs. Two regions in the second and fourth quarters of the GrpE molecule show higher homology, particularly in three stretches of nine, six and nine amino acid residues, respectively. The archaeal gene uses all codons but three, whereas the bacterial homologs lack higher numbers of codons. The M. mazei grpE responded to heat-shock by increasing transcription, in a manner similar to that of the nearby heat-shock gene dnaK.
authors.affiliation: Wadsworth Center for Laboratories and Research, New York State Department of Health.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Conway de Macario
authors.forename: C B
authors.initials: CB
authors.lastname: Dugan
authors.forename: A J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Macario
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001419:Bacteria / Q000235:genetics; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D015152:Blotting, Northern; D003062:Codon / Q000235:genetics; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D029968:Escherichia coli Proteins; D005798:Genes, Bacterial; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D018840:HSP70 Heat-Shock Proteins; D006360:Heat-Shock Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D017020:Methanosarcina / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D012329:RNA, Bacterial / Q000032:analysis; D015183:Restriction Mapping; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D003062:Codon; D029968:Escherichia coli Proteins; C068113:GrpE protein, Bacteria; D018840:HSP70 Heat-Shock Proteins; D006360:Heat-Shock Proteins; D012329:RNA, Bacterial; C063842:dnaK protein, E coli