PseG of pseudaminic acid biosynthesis - A UDP-sugar hydrolase as a masked glycosyltransferase

The flagellin proteins in pathogenic bacteria such as Campylobacter jejuni and Helicobacter pylori are heavily glycosylated with the nine-carbon alpha-keto acid, pseudaminic acid. The presence of this posttranslational modification is absolutely required for assembly of functional flagella. Since motility is required for colonization, pseudaminic acid biosynthesis represents a virulence factor in these bacteria. Pseudaminic acid is generated from UDP-N-acetylglucosamine in five biosynthetic steps. The final step has been shown to involve the condensation of 2,4-diacetamido- 2,4,6-trideoxy-L-altrose ( 6-deoxy-AltdiNAc) with phosphoenolpyruvate as catalyzed by the enzyme pseudaminic acid synthase, NeuB3. The 6-deoxy-AltdiNAc used in this process is generated from its nucleotide-linked form, UDP-6-deoxy-AltdiNAc, by the action of a hydrolase that cleaves the glycosidic bond and releases UDP. This manuscript describes the first characterization of a UDP-6-deoxy-AltdiNAc hydrolase, namely PseG ( Cj1312) from C. jejuni. The activity of this enzyme is independent of the presence of divalent metal ions, and the values of the catalytic constants were found to be k(cat) = 27 s(-1) and K-m = 174 mu M. The enzyme was shown to hydrolyze the substrate with an overall inversion of stereochemistry at C-1 and to utilize a C-O bond cleavage mechanism during catalysis. These results, coupled with homology comparisons, suggest that the closest ancestors to the hydrolase are members of the metal-independent GT-B family of glycosyltransferases that include the enzyme MurG.