Polarity and Charge as Determinants for Translocase Requirement for Membrane Protein Insertion

Abstract

Membrane protein biogenesis in bacteria is a well-studied but poorly understood area in the field of membrane proteins. In bacteria, the Sec translocon and the YidC insertase promote the membrane insertion process. Both proteins are essential, and universally conserved, and together insert about 95% of the proteins in E.coli. Membrane insertion of SecYEG-dependent proteins likely occurs at the lateral gate of SecY, the channel-forming subunit of the bacterial Sec translocon. On the other hand, YidC catalyzes insertion by possessing a hydrophilic groove, which can accommodate the hydrophilic region of the substrate that inserts across the membrane. Recently, Soman et al (2014) have reported that increasing the charge of the translocated region of procoat can route substrates from the YidC pathway into the Sec pathway. Here, we have further tested this polarity/charge hypothesis by showing that the major coat protein of bacteriophage M13 can become increasingly YidC/Sec dependent by making the periplasmic loop highly polar in the absence of charged residues. We also show that adding hydrophobic amino acids to highly polar or charged loop can decrease the Sec-dependence of the otherwise strictly Sec-dependent substrates. Additionally we demonstrate that increasing the driving force of insertion by adding four leucyl residues to the transmembrane segment leads to translocation of a highly charged region that was not inserted by native TM segment. Finally, we show that the length of procoat loop is a determinant for Sec dependent insertion. The combined results support the polarity/charge hypothesis and is consistent with the notion that membrane insertion occurs at the interface of SecYEG and YidC.