The mechanism of high-level resistance to vancomycin in enterococci consists of the synthesis of peptidoglycan terminating ind-alanyl-d-lactate instead of the usuald-alanyl-d-alanine. This alternate cell wall biosynthesis pathway is ensured by the collective actions of three enzymes: VanH, VanA, and VanX. The origin of this resistance mechanism is unknown. We have cloned three genes encoding homologs of VanH, VanA, and VanX from two organisms which produce glycopeptide antibiotics: the A47934 producer Streptomyces toyocaensis NRRL 15009 and the vancomycin producer Amycolatopsis orientalis C329.2. The predicted amino acid sequences are highly similar to those found in VRE: 54 to 61% identity for VanH, 59 to 63% identity for VanA, and 61 to 64% identity for VanX. Furthermore, the orientations of the genes,vanH, vanA, and vanX, are identical to the orientations found in vancomycin-resistant enterococci. Southern analysis of total DNA from other glycopeptide-producing organisms,A. orientalis 18098 (chloro-eremomycin producer), A. orientalis subsp. lurida (ristocetin producer), andAmycolatopsis coloradensis subsp. labeda(teicoplanin and avoparcin producer), with a probe derived from thevanH, vanA, and vanX cluster fromA. orientalis C329.2 revealed cross-hybridizing DNA in all strains. In addition, the vanH, vanA,vanX cluster was amplified from all glycopeptide-producing organisms by PCR with degenerate primers complementary to conserved regions in VanH and VanX. Thus, this gene sequence is common to all glycopeptide producers tested. These results suggest that glycopeptide-producing organisms may have been the source of resistance genes in vancomycin-resistant enterococci.

Vancomycin binds to bacterial cell-wall intermediates to achieve its antibiotic effect. Infections of vancomycin-resistant enterococci are, however, becoming an increasing problem; the bacteria are resistant because they synthesize different cell-wall intermediates. The enzymes involved in cell-wall biosynthesis, therefore, are potential targets for combating this resistance. Recent biochemical and crystallographic results are providing mechanistic and structural details about some of these targets.

VanX, one of the five proteins required for the vancomycin-resistant phenotype in clinically pathogenic Enterococci, is a zinc-containing d-Ala-d-Ala dipeptidase. To identify potential zinc ligands and begin defining the active site residues, we have mutated the 2 cysteine, 5 histidine, and 4 of the 28 aspartate and glutamate residues in the 202 residue VanX protein. Of 10 mutations, 3 cause inactivation and greater than 90% loss of zinc in purified enzyme samples, implicating His116, Asp123, and His184 as zinc-coordinating residues. Homology searches using the 10 amino acid sequence SxHxxGxAxD, in which histidine and aspartate residues are putative zinc ligands, identified the metal coordinating ligands in the N-terminal domain of the murine Sonic hedgehog protein, which also exhibits an architecture for metal coordination identical to that observed in thermolysin from Bacillus thermoproteolyticus. Furthermore, this 10 amino acid consensus sequence is found in the Streptomyces albus G zinc-dependent N-acyl-d-Ala-d-Ala carboxypeptidase, an enzyme catalyzing essentially the same d-Ala-d-Ala dipeptide bond cleavage as VanX, suggesting equivalent mechanisms and zinc catalytic site architectures. VanX residue Glu181 is analogous to the Glu143 catalytic base in B. thermoproteolyticus thermolysin, and the E181A VanX mutant has no detectable dipeptidase activity, yet maintains near-stoichiometric zinc content, a result consistent with the participation of the residue as a catalytic base.

The key residues of the EntVanX active site are strongly conserved in the VanX homologs, suggesting their active-site topologies are similar. StoVanX is a highly efficient D-Ala-D-Ala dipeptidase; its gene is located in a vanHAX operon, consistent with a vancomycin-immunity function. StoVanX is a potential source for the VanX found in gram-positive enterococci. The catalytic efficiencies of D-Ala-D-Ala hydrolysis for EcoVanX and SynVanX are 25-fold lower than for EntVanX, suggesting they have a role in cell-wall turnover. Clustered with the ecovanX gene is a putative dipeptide permease system that imports D-Ala-D-Ala into the cell. The combined action of EcoVanX and the permease could permit the use of D-Ala-D-Ala as a bacterial energy source under starvation conditions.

The interaction between the pyruvate decarboxylase (E1) component and a di-domain (lipoyl domain plus peripheral subunit-binding domain) from the dihydrolipoyl acetyltransferase (E2) component of the Bacillus stearothermophilus pyruvate dehydrogenase multienzyme complex was investigated. Only 1 mol of di-domain (binding domain) was bound to 1 mol of heterotetrameric E1 (alpha 2 beta 2) and the binding was without effect on the kinetic activity of E1. Similarly, the di-domain bound to separate E1 beta subunits at a maximal polypeptide chain ratio of 1:2, but no detectable interaction was found with the E1 alpha subunit. However, addition of the monomeric E1 alpha subunit to an E1 beta-di-domain complex generated a fully functional E1 (alpha 2 beta 2)-di-domain complex, indicating that the E1 beta subunit plays the critical part in binding the E1 component to the di-domain and suggesting that no chaperonin is needed in vitro to promote the assembly of the three separate proteins. Mixing the E1 and dihydrolipoyl dehydrogenase (E3) components in the presence of di-domain revealed that E1 and E3 cannot bind simultaneously to the same molecule of di-domain, a new feature of the assembly pathway and an important factor in determining the ultimate structure of the assembled enzyme complex.