Chromatographic Separation and Mass Spectrometric Analysis of Bacterial Cell Wall Synthesizing Enzyme Complexes

ABSTRACT

Penicillin-binding proteins (PBPs) were shown to associate non-covalently with many other morphogene proteins (MGPs). Specific associations were assigned. The PBPs were labeled with spectroscopic/fluorescence (F/S) groups in the form of dansylated β-lactam probes. Competitive β-lactam binding of non-denatured PBP/MGP complexes led to characteristic patterns of F/S labeling by the probes. The salt-bridge specific reagent, ethanedinitrile, covalently linked various MGPs to the F/S labeled PBPs. Proteolysis of chromatographically purified F/S labeled fractions gave sets of peptides analyzed by MALDI-TOF to give MH data. Peptide mass-fingerprinting analysis revealed that covalent linkage occurred with other MGPs and not with non-MGP proteins of ∼3400 proteins in the SWISS-PROT r33 data base for E. coli K-12.

Keywords::

• gel exclusion chromatography
• reverse phase chromatography
• protein complexes
• salt bridges
• penicillin binding proteins
• MALDITOF analysis
• peptide mass fingerprinting
• hydrophobic
• protein separations
• bacterial cell wall