title: Lipid dependencies, biogenesis and cytoplasmic micellar forms of integral membrane sugar transport proteins of the bacterial phosphotransferase system.
abstract: Permeases of the prokaryotic phosphoenolpyruvate-sugar phosphotransferase system (PTS) catalyse sugar transport coupled to sugar phosphorylation. The lipid composition of a membrane determines the activities of these enzyme/transporters as well as the degree of coupling of phosphorylation to transport. We have investigated mechanisms of PTS permease biogenesis and identified cytoplasmic (soluble) forms of these integral membrane proteins. We found that the catalytic activities of the soluble forms differ from those of the membrane-embedded forms. Transport via the latter is much more sensitive to lipid composition than to phosphorylation, and some of these enzymes are much more sensitive to the lipid environment than others. While the membrane-embedded PTS permeases are always dimeric, the cytoplasmic forms are micellar, either monomeric or dimeric. Scattered published evidence suggests that other integral membrane proteins also exist in cytoplasmic micellar forms. The possible functions of cytoplasmic PTS permeases in biogenesis, intracellular sugar phosphorylation and permease storage are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Ain Shams University, Abbasia, Cairo, Egypt.|Department of Molecular Biology, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0116, USA.
authors.forename: Mohammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Aboulwafa
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Biology, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0116, USA.
authors.forename: Milton H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Saier
mesh_terms: D002462:Cell Membrane / Q000201:enzymology; D003593:Cytoplasm / Q000201:enzymology; D050356:Lipid Metabolism; D046911:Macromolecular Substances / Q000378:metabolism*; D026901:Membrane Transport Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D010731:Phosphoenolpyruvate Sugar Phosphotransferase System / Q000378:metabolism*; D011387:Prokaryotic Cells / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000378:metabolism*; D055503:Protein Multimerization
chemical_list: D046911:Macromolecular Substances; D026901:Membrane Transport Proteins; D010731:Phosphoenolpyruvate Sugar Phosphotransferase System