Transport of divalent cations with tetracycline as mediated by the transposon Tn10-encoded tetracycline resistance protein.

Abstract

Tetracycline uptake into inverted membrane vesicles from Tn10-bearing Escherichia coli cells required divalent cations. The degree of the stimulation of tetracycline uptake by various divalent cations showed the following decreasing order: Co2+ greater than Mn2+ greater than Mg2+ greater than Cd2+ greater than Ca2+. This order is consistent with the increasing order of the dissociation constants for metal chelate complexes of tetracycline. The Hill constants for the tetracycline uptake rate with various divalent cation concentrations were one. These observations strongly suggested that a 1:1 complex of tetracycline and a divalent cation was transported by a tetracycline resistance protein. This notion was confirmed by our observations that 60Co2+ was actively taken up with tetracycline by the membrane vesicles prepared from resistant cells. In the absence of tetracycline, no uptake of 60Co2+ was observed. It is clear that the 60Co2+ uptake was mediated by the tetracycline resistance protein, because the membrane vesicles from tetracycline-sensitive cells did not show the uptake of 60Co2+ and tetracycline. The 60Co2+ uptake was inhibited in the presence of other divalent cations, without any significant effect on tetracycline uptake, indicating that these cations are also transported with tetracycline by the tetracycline resistance protein.