hmgA Gene Research Articles

Expression and characterization of the HMG-CoA reductase of the thermophilic archaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus.

The thermostable class I HMG-CoA reductase of Sulfolobus solfataricus offers potential for industrial applications and for the initiation of crystallization trials of a biosynthetic HMG-CoA reductase. However, of the 15 arginine codons of the hmgA gene that encodes S. solfataricus HMG-CoA reductase, 14 (93%) are AGA or AGG, the arginine codons used least frequently by Escherichia coli. The presence of these rare codons in tandem or in the first 20 codons of a gene can complicate expression of that gene in E. coli. Problems include premature chain termination and misincorporation of lysine for arginine. We therefore sought to improve the expression and subsequent yield of S. solfataricus HMG-CoA reductase by expanding the pool size of tRNA(AGA,AGG), the tRNA that recognizes these two rare codons. Coexpression of the S. solfataricus hmgA gene with the argU gene that encodes tRNA(AGA,AGG) resulted in an over 10-fold increase in enzyme yield. This has provided significantly greater quantities of purified enzyme for potential industrial applications and for crystallographic characterization of a stable class I HMG-CoA reductase. It has, in addition, facilitated determination of kinetic parameters and of pH optima for all four catalyzed reactions, for determination of the K(i) for inhibition by the statin drug mevinolin, and for comparison of the properties of the HMG-CoA reductase of this thermophilic archaeon to those of other class I HMG-CoA reductases.

Identification of a novel nutrient-deprivation-induced Sinorhizobium meliloti gene (hmgA) involved in the degradation of tyrosine.

Sinorhizobium meliloti strain N4 carries a Tn5luxAB insertion in a gene which is induced by nitrogen and carbon deprivation as well as in the presence of tyrosine. The Tn5luxAB-tagged locus was found to share significant similarity with the human hmgA gene and the corresponding Aspergillus nidulans gene, encoding the enzyme homogentisate dioxygenase, which is involved in the degradation of tyrosine. Extended DNA sequence analysis of the tagged locus revealed the presence of several ORFs, including one encoding a polypeptide sharing a high degree of similarity with human and fungal maleylacetoacetate isomerases. Strain N4 was found to be unable to use tyrosine as carbon source, to lack homogentisate dioxygenase activity, to produce a melanin-like pigment and to be affected in stationary-phase survival. This is believed to be the first report of a hmgA-homologous gene in bacteria.

3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase of Sulfolobus solfataricus: DNA sequence, phylogeny, expression in Escherichia coli of the hmgA gene, and purification and kinetic characterization of the gene product.

The gene (hmgA) for 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase (EC 1.1.1.34) from the thermophilic archaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus P2 was cloned and sequenced. S. solfataricus HMG-CoA reductase exhibited a high degree of sequence identity (47%) to the HMG-CoA reductase of the halophilic archaeon Haloferax volcanii. Phylogenetic analyses of HMG-CoA reductase protein sequences suggested that the two archaeal genes are distant homologs of eukaryotic genes. The only known bacterial HMG-CoA reductase, a strictly biodegradative enzyme from Pseudomonas mevalonii, is highly diverged from archaeal and eukaryotic HMG-CoA reductases. The S. solfataricus hmgA gene encodes a true biosynthetic HMG-CoA reductase. Expression of hmgA in Escherichia coli generated a protein that both converted HMG-CoA to mevalonate and cross-reacted with antibodies raised against rat liver HMG-CoA reductase. S. solfataricus HMG-CoA reductase was purified in 40% yield to a specific activity of 17.5 microU per mg at 50 degrees C by a sequence of steps that included heat treatment, ion-exchange chromatography, hydrophobic interaction chromatography, and affinity chromatography. The final product was homogeneous, as judged by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The substrate was (S)- not (R)-HMG-CoA; the reductant was NADPH not NADH. The Km values for HMG-CoA (17 microM) and NADPH (23 microM) were similar in magnitude to those of other biosynthetic HMG-CoA reductases. Unlike other HMG-CoA reductases, the enzyme was stable at 90 degrees C and was optimally active at pH 5.5 and 85 degrees C.

Molecular Characterization of a Gene Encoding a Homogentisate Dioxygenase from Aspergillus nidulans and Identification of Its Human and Plant Homologues

We report here the first characterization of a gene encoding a homogentisate dioxygenase, the Aspergillus nidulans hmgA gene. The HmgA protein catalyzes an essential step in phenylalanine catabolism, and disruption of the gene results in accumulation of homogentisate in broths containing phenylalanine. hmgA putatively encodes a 448-residue polypeptide (Mr = 50,168) containing 21 histidine and 23 tyrosine residues. This polypeptide has been expressed in Escherichia coli as a fusion to glutathione S-transferase, and the affinity-purified protein has homogentisate dioxygenase activity. A. nidulans, an ascomycete amenable to classical and reverse genetic analysis, is a good metabolic model to study inborn errors in human Phe catabolism. One such disease, alkaptonuria, was the first human inborn error recognized (Garrod, A. E. (1902) Lancet 2, 1616-1620) and results from loss of homogentisate dioxygenase. Here we take advantage of the high degree of conservation between the amino acid sequences of the fungal and higher eukaryote enzymes of this pathway to identify expressed sequence tags encoding human and plant homologues of HmgA. This is a significant advance in characterizing the genetic defect(s) of alkaptonuria and illustrates the usefulness of our fungal model.

Construction of composite transposons for halophilic Archaea.

Transposons with selectable marker genes (e.g., antibiotic resistance) have been extremely useful tools in bacterial genetics but have not been found naturally in Archaea. We constructed synthetic transposons consisting of halobacterial ISH elements (ISH2, ISH26, or ISH28) flanking a mevinolin resistance determinant. Introduction of these constructs into Haloferax volcanii cells can produce drug-resistant transformants through homologous recombination between the plasmid hmgA gene and the chromosomal hmgA locus. This problem was overcome by using another host, Haloarcula hispanica, the hmgA gene of which shares little homology with that from Haloferax volcanii. Introduction of an ISH28-based transposon (ThD28) into Haloarcula hispanica cells produced numerous transformants. Each of these was shown to contain an ISH-flanked mevinolin resistance determinant integrated into the cellular DNA. Integration was not obviously site specific. Transposon ThD26 (based on ISH26a), was less mobile, relative to ThD28, and the ISH2-based construct (ThD22) did not transpose at all in these cells. The further development of halobacterial transposons may provide useful genetic tools allowing rapid isolation and analysis of halobacterial genes, particularly those with no selectable phenotype.