• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.229-234
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• 1984

A modified E. coli trp operon, $trpL({\Delta}att)\;trpE^{FBR}$, was conjugally transfered into Klebsiella pneumoniae $KC_{100}\;(Phe^-,\;Tyr^-,\;Trp^-,\;Rif^r,\;Kam^r)$ by in vivo cloning using the hybrid plasmid $R_{6}K::$ Mucts 61 with a transfer frequency of $5.2{\times}10^{-7}$. Two K. pneumoniae transconjugants, $KUA_{701}\;and\;KUA_{702}$, were isolated. The characters of attenuation control-free and resistance to feedback-inhibition which are characteristics of donor C. coli trp operon were normally expressed in the $KUA_{701}.\;However,\;KUA_{702}$ retained only the feedback-inhibition resistant character. $Trp^+$ phenotype and ampicillin resistant character were completely stable in the transconjugants, but streptomycin resistant character was lost in the transconjugants.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.278-285
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• 2016

The bifunctional PheA protein, having chorismate mutase and prephenate dehydratase (CMPD) activities, is one of the key regulatory enzymes in the aromatic amino acid biosynthesis in Escherichia coli, and is negatively regulated by an end-product, phenyalanine. Therefore, PheA protein has been thought as useful for protein engineering to utilize mass production of essential amino acid phenylalanine. To obtain feedback resistant PheA protein against phenylalanine, we mutated by using random mutagenesis, extensively screened, and obtained $pheA^{FBR}$ gene encoding a feedback resistant PheA protein. The mutant PheA protein contains substitution of Leu to Phe at the position of 118, displaying that higher affinity (about $290{\mu}M$) for prephenate in comparison with that (about $850{\mu}M$) of wild type PheA protein. Kinetic analysis showed that the saturation curve of $PheA^{FBR}$ against phenyalanine is hyperbolic rather than that of $PheA^{WT}$, which is sigmoidal, indicating that the L118F mutant enzyme has no cooperative effects in prephenate binding in the presence of phenylalanine. In vitro enzymatic assay showed that the mutant protein exhibited increased activity by above 3.5 folds compared to the wild type enzyme. Moreover, L118F mutant protein appeared insensitive to feedback inhibition with keeping 40% of enzymatic activity even in the presence of 10 mM phenylalanine at which the activity of wild type $PheA^{WT}$ was not observed. The substitution of Leu to Phe in CMPD may induce significant conformational change for this enzyme to acquire feedback resistance to end-product of the pathway by modulating kinetic properties.