Thermal stability of Cpl-7 endolysin from the streptococcus pneumoniae bacteriophage Cp-7; cell wall-targeting of its CW_7 motifs

PLoS One. 2012;7(10):e46654. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0046654. Epub 2012 Oct 8.

Abstract

Endolysins comprise a novel class of selective antibacterials refractory to develop resistances. The Cpl-7 endolysin, encoded by the Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteriophage Cp-7, consists of a catalytic module (CM) with muramidase activity and a cell wall-binding module (CWBM) made of three fully conserved CW_7 repeats essential for activity. Firstly identified in the Cpl-7 endolysin, CW_7 motifs are also present in a great variety of cell wall hydrolases encoded, among others, by human and live-stock pathogens. However, the nature of CW_7 receptors on the bacterial envelope remains unknown. In the present study, the structural stability of Cpl-7 and the target recognized by CW_7 repeats, relevant for exploitation of Cpl-7 as antimicrobial, have been analyzed, and transitions from the CM and the CWBM assigned, using circular dichroism and differential scanning calorimetry. Cpl-7 stability is maximum around 6.0-6.5, near the optimal pH for activity. Above pH 8.0 the CM becomes extremely unstable, probably due to deprotonation of the N-terminal amino-group, whereas the CWBM is rather insensitive to pH variation and its structural stabilization by GlcNAc-MurNAc-l-Ala-d-isoGln points to the cell wall muropeptide as the cell wall target recognized by the CW_7 repeats. Denaturation data also revealed that Cpl-7 is organized into two essentially independent folding units, which will facilitate the recombination of the CM and the CWBM with other catalytic domains and/or cell wall-binding motifs to yield new tailored chimeric lysins with higher bactericidal activities or new pathogen specificities.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Cell Wall / metabolism
  • Endopeptidases / chemistry*
  • Endopeptidases / metabolism
  • Enzyme Stability
  • Protein Folding
  • Streptococcus Phages / enzymology*
  • Streptococcus pneumoniae / virology*
  • Temperature

Substances

  • Endopeptidases
  • endolysin

Grants and funding

This work was supported by grants SAF2009-10824, and BFU2009-10052 from Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN), and BIPPEP2 from Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid (S2010/BMD-2457). Additional funding was provided by the CIBER de Enfermedades Respiratorias (CIBERES), an initiative of the ISCIII. P. Rico-Lastres was supported by a fellowship from MICINN. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.