Jw. Anderson et Eb. Waygood, PHOSPHORYL TRANSFER BETWEEN PHOSPHORYLATED HISTIDINE-CONTAINING PROTEIN AND HISTIDINE-CONTAINING PROTEIN IS NOT AUTOCATALYTIC, Biochemistry, 32(22), 1993, pp. 5913-5916
Histidine-containing protein, HPr, is a phosphocarrier protein that is
part of the bacterial phosphoenolpyruvate:sugar phosphotransferase sy
stem. HPr is phosphorylated by enzyme I, and P-HPr transfers the phosp
horyl group to the IIA domain of a number of sugar-specific enzyme II
complexes. Autocatalytic phosphoryl transfer between P-HPr and HPr has
recently been reported [van Dijk, A. A., Eisermann, R., Hengstenberg,
W., & Robillard, G. T. (1991) Biochemistry 30, 2876-2882]. Our result
s show that this phosphoryl transfer is due to an unidentified contami
nant of HPr preparations. The phosphoryl transfer activity is not pres
ent in all HPr preparations. When present, the phosphoryl transfer act
ivity can be removed by further purification or destroyed over time by
resuspension of HPr preparations in water. There is no autocatalytic
phosphoryl transfer between P-HPr and HPr.