Escherichia coli glutathionylspermidine: Phylogeny and regulation of gene expression

Glutathionylspermdine synthetase/amidase (Gss) and the encoding gene (gss) have only been described in two widely separated species; namely Escherichia coli and several members of the Kinetoplastida phyla. In the present paper we have studied the species distribution more extensively. It is striking that all of the 75 Enterobacteria species that has been sequenced contain sequences with very high degree of homology to the E. coli Gss protein. Although homologous sequences are also present in various other bacteria, in contrast to Enterobacteria they are not present in all species of a given phyla. As previously reported homologous sequences were found in all five species of Kinetoplastids tested (including Trypansosma cruzi), but it is striking that comparable sequences are not found in a variety of invertebrate and vertebrate species, Archea and plants. Studies in E. coli show that the highest accumulation of glutathionylspermidine is found in stationary phase cultures where most of the intracellular spermidine is converted to glutathionylspermidine. However, even in log phase cells there is some formation of glutathionylspermidine, and isotope exchange experiments show that there is a rapid exchange between glutathionylspermidine and intracellular spermidine. We have not been able to define a specific physiologic function for glutathionylspermidine, but microarray studies comparing gss+ and -gss strains of E. coli show that a large number of genes are either upregulated or downregulated by the loss of the gss gene.

6

Chattopadhyay MK, Chen W, Tabor H