Requirement of periplasmic chaperones in protein import

• Antragsteller: Professor Dr. Volkmar Braun
• Fachliche Zuordnung: Stoffwechselphysiologie, Biochemie und Genetik der Mikroorganismen
• Förderung: Förderung von 2008 bis 2012
• Projektkennung: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 57648236

We discovered that the activity of an imported protein depends on a specific periplasmic chaperone. A protein toxin, colicin M, kills only cells that synthesize the FkpA chaperon. This finding assigns for the first time a function to FkpA, relates a periplasmic chaperone to a protein import rather than to folding and assembly of newly synthesized exported proteins, and allows selection of inactive FkpA mutant proteins. It is proposed to elucidate the activation mechanism of colicin M by FkpA using in vivo and in vitro experiments. In addition, colicin M will be used to specifically select fkpA mutants to study the functions of the N- and C-domains of FkpA.

• DFG-Verfahren: Sachbeihilfen