Based on sequence analysis, VirB1-89K was predicted to contain a C-terminal CHAP domain (located between the amino acids 796 and 926) and an N-terminal transmembrane domain, but lacks a signal sequence. The CHAP domain is broadly found in proteins from bacteria, phages, archaea, and eukaryotes of the Trypanosomidae family [19, 20]. It has been proposed that the CHAP domain may function mainly in peptidoglycan hydrolysis [19]. The phylogenetic analysis of VirB1-89K and its homologous proteins showed that VirB1-89K and N-acetylmuramoyl-L-alanine amidase probably originate from the same ancestor (Figure 1A). Figure 1 Sequence

analysis of VirB1-89K. (A) Phylogenetic analysis of VirB1-89K. Sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis of VirB1-89K homologs were performed using MEGA 5.1 software. Values at nodes indicate bootstrap values for 500 replicates. (B) Analysis of the tertiary structure of the CHAP domain of Luminespib price VirB1-89K by using the online server SWISS-MODEL. (C) Visualization of the surface active site of the CHAP domain by using PyMOLviewer, showing Acadesine purchase the cysteine residue in green and histidine in red. Tertiary structure prediction showed that the CHAP domain of VirB1-89K belongs to the α + β structural class, with the N-terminal half containing 3 predicted α-helices and the

C-terminal half composed of 6 predicted β-strands (Figure 1B). Selleckchem SNS-032 protein tertiary structure modeling revealed that this CHAP domain Roflumilast contains an putative active center composed of a conserved cysteine and a histidine (Figure 1C), these two invariant residues form the main part of the active site of CHAP domain containing proteins [19, 21, 22]. These results together with the above phylogeny analysis

suggested that VirB1-89K may be an N-acetylmuramyl-L-alanine amidase. Expression and purification of the CHAP domain of VirB1-89K To figure out the function of VirB1-89K during the assembly of 89K T4SS apparatus, a 411 bp DNA fragment containing the CHAP domain of VirB1-89K was cloned and over-expressed in E. coli as a C-terminally His6-tagged protein. The protein of interest was designated VirB1-89KCHAP. We found VirB1-89KCHAP was efficiently expressed after induction at 16°C (Figure 2A). The molecular mass of the expressed recombinant protein agreed well with a predicted size of 15.4 kDa. Although a majority of the VirB1-89KCHAP protein was present in the inclusion body fractions of crude cell lysates, sufficient soluble material was produced to recover useful amounts of active protein. Highly purified protein (>95% homogeneity) was prepared by Ni+ affinity chromatography and gel filtration (Figure 2B). N-terminal sequencing results confirmed that the produced protein was indeed the CHAP domain of VirB1-89K. Figure 2 Over-expression and purification of VirB1-89KCHAP. (A) SDS-PAGE analysis (12%) of the interest VirB1-89KCHAP protein expressed in E. coli.