Group II truncated haemoglobin YjbI prevents reactive oxygen species-induced protein aggregation in Bacillus subtilis

  1. Takeshi Imai  Is a corresponding author
  2. Ryuta Tobe
  3. Koji Honda
  4. Mai Tanaka
  5. Jun Kawamoto
  6. Hisaaki Mihara  Is a corresponding author
  1. Hyogo Prefectural Institute of Technology, Japan
  2. Ritsumeikan University, Japan
  3. Kyoto University, Japan

Abstract

Oxidative stress–mediated formation of protein hydroperoxides can induce irreversible fragmentation of the peptide backbone and accumulation of cross-linked protein aggregates, leading to cellular toxicity, dysfunction, and death. However, how bacteria protect themselves from damages caused by protein hydroperoxidation is unknown. Here we show that YjbI, a group II truncated haemoglobin from Bacillus subtilis, prevents oxidative aggregation of cell-surface proteins by its protein hydroperoxide peroxidase-like activity, which removes hydroperoxide groups from oxidised proteins. Disruption of the yjbI gene in B. subtilis lowered biofilm water repellence, which associated with the cross-linked aggregation of the biofilm matrix protein TasA. YjbI was localised to the cell surface or the biofilm matrix, and the sensitivity of planktonically grown cells to generators of reactive oxygen species was significantly increased upon yjbI disruption, suggesting that YjbI pleiotropically protects labile cell-surface proteins from oxidative damage. YjbI removed hydroperoxide residues from the model oxidized protein substrate bovine serum albumin and biofilm component TasA, preventing oxidative aggregation in vitro. Furthermore, the replacement of Tyr63 near the haem of YjbI with phenylalanine resulted in the loss of its protein peroxidase-like activity, and the mutant gene failed to rescue biofilm water repellency and resistance to oxidative stress induced by hypochlorous acid in the yjbI-deficient strain. These findings provide new insights into the role of truncated haemoglobin and the importance of hydroperoxide removal from proteins in the survival of aerobic bacteria.

Data availability

All data is available within the text, figures, and tables of the manuscript. Source data files have been provided for Figures 2, 3, Figure 2-figure supplement 1, Figure 3-figure supplement 1 and Figure 4-figure supplement 1.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Takeshi Imai

    Hyogo Prefectural Institute of Technology, Hyogo, Japan
    For correspondence
    imai@hyogo-kg.jp
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-7387-6212
  2. Ryuta Tobe

    Department of Biotechnology, Ritsumeikan University, Shiga, Japan
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Koji Honda

    Hyogo Prefectural Institute of Technology, Hyogo, Japan
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Mai Tanaka

    Department of Biotechnology, Ritsumeikan University, Shiga, Japan
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Jun Kawamoto

    Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Hisaaki Mihara

    Department of Biotechnology, Ritsumeikan University, Shiga, Japan
    For correspondence
    mihara@fc.ritsumei.ac.jp
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Funding

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (18K14383)

  • Takeshi Imai

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (20K15446)

  • Takeshi Imai

Ritsumeikan Global Innovation Research Organization, Ritsumeikan University

  • Hisaaki Mihara

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

© 2022, Imai et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 698
    views
  • 199
    downloads
  • 1
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Takeshi Imai
  2. Ryuta Tobe
  3. Koji Honda
  4. Mai Tanaka
  5. Jun Kawamoto
  6. Hisaaki Mihara
(2022)
Group II truncated haemoglobin YjbI prevents reactive oxygen species-induced protein aggregation in Bacillus subtilis
eLife 11:e70467.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.70467

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.70467

Further reading

    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine
    Alejandro J Brenes, Eva Griesser ... Angus I Lamond
    Research Article

    Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) have great potential to be used as alternatives to embryonic stem cells (hESCs) in regenerative medicine and disease modelling. In this study, we characterise the proteomes of multiple hiPSC and hESC lines derived from independent donors and find that while they express a near-identical set of proteins, they show consistent quantitative differences in the abundance of a subset of proteins. hiPSCs have increased total protein content, while maintaining a comparable cell cycle profile to hESCs, with increased abundance of cytoplasmic and mitochondrial proteins required to sustain high growth rates, including nutrient transporters and metabolic proteins. Prominent changes detected in proteins involved in mitochondrial metabolism correlated with enhanced mitochondrial potential, shown using high-resolution respirometry. hiPSCs also produced higher levels of secreted proteins, including growth factors and proteins involved in the inhibition of the immune system. The data indicate that reprogramming of fibroblasts to hiPSCs produces important differences in cytoplasmic and mitochondrial proteins compared to hESCs, with consequences affecting growth and metabolism. This study improves our understanding of the molecular differences between hiPSCs and hESCs, with implications for potential risks and benefits for their use in future disease modelling and therapeutic applications.

    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
    Jie Luo, Jeff Ranish
    Tools and Resources

    Dynamic conformational and structural changes in proteins and protein complexes play a central and ubiquitous role in the regulation of protein function, yet it is very challenging to study these changes, especially for large protein complexes, under physiological conditions. Here, we introduce a novel isobaric crosslinker, Qlinker, for studying conformational and structural changes in proteins and protein complexes using quantitative crosslinking mass spectrometry. Qlinkers are small and simple, amine-reactive molecules with an optimal extended distance of ~10 Å, which use MS2 reporter ions for relative quantification of Qlinker-modified peptides derived from different samples. We synthesized the 2-plex Q2linker and showed that the Q2linker can provide quantitative crosslinking data that pinpoints key conformational and structural changes in biosensors, binary and ternary complexes composed of the general transcription factors TBP, TFIIA, and TFIIB, and RNA polymerase II complexes.