Proposed carrier lipid-binding site of undecaprenyl pyrophosphate phosphatase from Escherichia coli

Undecaprenyl pyrophosphate phosphatase (UppP), an integral membrane protein, catalyzes the dephosphorylation of undecaprenyl pyrophosphate to undecaprenyl phosphate, which is an essential carrier lipid in the bacterial cell wall synthesis. Sequence alignment reveals two consensus regions, containing glutamate-rich (E/Q)XXXE plus PGXSRSXXT motifs and a histidine residue, specific to the bacterial UppP enzymes. The predicted topological model suggests that both of these regions are localized near the aqueous interface of UppP and face the periplasm, implicating that its enzymatic function is on the outer side of the plasma membrane. The mutagenesis analysis demonstrates that most of the mutations (E17A/E21A, H30A, S173A, R174A, and T178A) within the consensus regions are completely inactive, indicating that the catalytic site of UppP is constituted by these two regions. Enzymatic analysis also shows an absolute requirement of magnesium or calcium ions in enzyme activity. The three-dimensional structural model and molecular dynamics simulation studies have shown a plausible structure of the catalytic site of UppP and thus provides insights into the molecular basis of the enzyme-substrate interaction in membrane bilayers.