Design of a polypeptide FRET substrate that facilitates study of the antimicrobial protease lysostaphin

We have developed a polypeptide lysostaphin FRET (fluorescence resonance energy transfer) substrate (MV11F) for the endopeptidase activity of lysostaphin. Site-directed mutants of lysostaphin that abolished the killing activity against Staphylococcus aureus also completely inhibited the endopeptidase activity against the MV11 FRET substrate. Lysostaphin-producing staphylococci are resistant to killing by lysostaphin through incorporation of serine residues at positions 3 and 5 of the pentaglycine cross-bridge in their cell walls. The MV11 FRET substrate was engineered to introduce a serine residue at each of four positions of the pentaglycine target site and it was found that only a serine residue at position 3 completely inhibited cleavage. The introduction of random, natural amino acid substitutions at position 3 of the pentaglycine target site demonstrated that only a glycine residue at this position was compatible with lysostaphin cleavage of the MV11 FRET substrate. A second series of polypeptide substrates (decoys) was developed with the GFP (green fluorescent protein) domain of MV11 replaced with that of the DNase domain of colicin E9. Using a competition FRET assay, the lysostaphin endopeptidase was shown to bind to a decoy peptide containing a GGSGG cleavage site. The MV11 substrate provides a valuable system to facilitate structure/function studies of the endopeptidase activity of lysostaphin and its orthologues.