Cation/proton antiporters (CPAs) play a major role in maintaining living cells’ homeostasis. CPAs are commonly divided into two main groups, CPA1 and CPA2, and are further characterized by two main phenotypes: ion selectivity and electrogenicity. However, tracing the evolutionary relationships of these transporters is challenging because of the high diversity within CPAs. Here, we conduct comprehensive evolutionary analysis of 6537 representative CPAs, describing the full complexity of their phylogeny, and revealing a sequence motif that appears to determine central phenotypic characteristics. In contrast to previous suggestions, we show that the CPA1/CPA2 division only partially correlates with electrogenicity. Our analysis further indicates two acidic residues in the binding site that carry the protons in electrogenic CPAs, and a polar residue in the unwound transmembrane helix 4 that determines ion selectivity. A rationally designed triple mutant successfully converted the electrogenic CPA, EcNhaA, to be electroneutral.

Na+/H+ antiporters are located in the cytoplasmic and intracellular membranes and play crucial roles in regulating intracellular pH, Na+, and volume. The NhaA antiporter of Escherichia coli is the best studied member of the Na+/H+ exchanger family and a model system for all related Na+/H+ exchangers, including eukaryotic representatives. Several amino acid residues are important for the transport activity of NhaA, including Lys-300, a residue that has recently been proposed to carry one of the two H+ ions that NhaA exchanges for one Na+ ion during one transport cycle. Here, we sought to characterize the effects of mutating Lys-300 of NhaA to amino acid residues containing side chains of different polarity and length (i.e. Ala, Arg, Cys, His, Glu, and Leu) on transporter stability and function. Salt resistance assays, acridine-orange fluorescence dequenching, solid supported membrane-based electrophysiology, and differential scanning fluorometry were used to characterize Na+ and H+ transport, charge translocation, and thermal stability of the different variants. These studies revealed that NhaA could still perform electrogenic Na+/H+ exchange even in the absence of a protonatable residue at the Lys-300 position. However, all mutants displayed lower thermal stability and reduced ion transport activity compared with the wild-type enzyme, indicating the critical importance of Lys-300 for optimal NhaA structural stability and function. On the basis of these experimental data, we propose a tentative mechanism integrating the functional and structural role of Lys-300.

The Na+, Li+/H+ antiporter of Escherichia coli (Ec-NhaA) maintains pH, Na+ homeostasis in enterobacteria. We used isothermal titration calorimetry to perform a detailed thermodynamic analysis of Li+ binding to Ec-NhaA and several of its mutants. We found that, in line with the canonical alternative access mechanistic model of secondary transporters, Li+/H+ binding to the antiporter is antagonistically coupled. Binding of Li+ displaces 2 H+ from the binding site. The process is enthalpically driven, the enthalpic gain just compensating for an entropic loss and the buffer-associated enthalpic changes dominate the overall free-energy change. Li+ binding, H+ release and antiporter activity were all affected to the same extent by mutations in the Li+ binding site (D163E, D163N, D164N, D164E), while D133C changed the H+/Li+ stoichiometry to 4. Most striking, however, was the mutation, A167P, which converted the Ec-NhaA antagonistic binding into synergistic binding which is only known to occur in Cl−/H+ antiporter.

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Much of the research on Na ؉ /H ؉ exchange has been done in prokaryotic models, mainly on the NhaA Na ؉ /H ؉ -exchanger from Escherichia coli (EcNhaA). Two conserved aspartate residues, Asp-163 and Asp-164, are essential for transport and are candidates for possible binding sites for the two H ؉ that are exchanged for one Na ؉ to make the overall transport process electrogenic. More recently, a proposed mechanism of transport for EcNhaA has suggested direct binding of one of the transported H ؉ to the conserved Lys-300 residue, a salt bridge partner of Asp-163. This contention is supported by a study reporting that substitution of the equivalent residue, Lys-305, of a related Na ؉ /H ؉ antiporter, NapA from Thermus thermophilus, renders the transporter electroneutral. In this work, we sought to establish whether the Lys-300 residue and its partner Asp-163 are essential for the electrogenicity of EcNhaA. To that end, we replaced Lys-300 with Gln, either alone or together with the simultaneous substitution of Asp-163 with Asn, and characterized these transporter variants in electrophysiological experiments combined with H ؉ transport measurements and stability analysis. We found that K300Q EcNhaA can still support electrogenic Na ؉ /H ؉ antiport in EcNhaA, but has reduced thermal stability. A parallel electrophysiological investigation of the K305Q variant of TtNapA revealed that it is also electrogenic. Furthermore, replacement of both salt bridge partners in the ion-binding site of EcNhaA produced an electrogenic variant (D163N/ K300Q). Our findings indicate that alternative mechanisms sustain EcNhaA activity in the absence of canonical ion-binding residues and that the conserved lysines confer structural stability.