Carboxysomes are proteinaceous biochemical compartments that constitute the enzymatic "back end" of the cyanobacterial CO 2 -concentrating mechanism. These protein-bound organelles catalyze HCO 3 ؊ dehydration and photosynthetic CO 2 fixation. In Synechocystis sp. strain PCC6803 these reactions involve the ␤-class carbonic anhydrase (CA), CcaA, and Form 1B ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco). The surrounding shell is thought to be composed of proteins encoded by the ccmKLMN operon, although little is known about how structural and catalytic proteins integrate to form a functional carboxysome. Using biochemical activity assays and molecular approaches we have identified a catalytic, multiprotein HCO 3 ؊ dehydration complex (BDC) associated with the protein shell of Synechocystis carboxysomes. The complex was minimally composed of a CcmM73 trimer, CcaA dimer, and CcmN. Larger native complexes also contained RbcL, RbcS, and two or three immunologically identified smaller forms of CcmM (62, 52, and 36 kDa). Yeast two-hybrid analyses indicated that the BDC was associated with the carboxysome shell through CcmM73-specific protein interactions with CcmK and CcmL. Protein interactions between CcmM73 and CcaA, CcmM73 and CcmN, or CcmM73 and itself required the N-terminal ␥-CA-like domain of CcmM73. The specificity of the CcmM73-CcaA interaction provided both a mechanism to integrate CcaA into the fabric of the carboxysome shell and a means to recruit this enzyme to the BDC during carboxysome biogenesis. Functionally, CcaA was the catalytic core of the BDC. CcmM73 bound H 14 CO 3 ؊ but was unable to catalyze HCO 3 ؊ dehydration, suggesting that it may potentially regulate BDC activity.

Sequence analysis of the carboxysomal carbonic anhydrase (CcaA) from Synechocystis PCC6803, Synechococcus PCC7942 and Nostoc ATCC29133, indicated high sequence identity to the β class of plant and bacterial carbonic anhydrases (CA), and conservation of the active site region. However, the cyanobacterial enzyme has a C-terminal extension of about 75 amino acids (aa) not found in the plant enzymes, and largely absent from other bacterial enzymes. Using recombinant DNA technology, genes encoding C-terminal truncation products of up to 127 aa were overexpressed in E. coli, and partially purified lysates were analysed for CA-mediated exchange of 18O between 13C18O2and H216O. Recombinant CcaA proteins with up to 60 aa removed (CcaAΔ60) were catalytically competent, but beyond this there was an abrupt loss of activity. CcaAΔ0, along with CcaAΔ40 and CcaAΔ60, also catalysed the hydrolysis of carbon oxysulfide (COS; an isoelectronic structural analogue of CO2), but CcaAΔ63 and CcaAΔ127 did not, indicating that truncations greater than 62 aa resulted in a general loss of catalytic competency. Analysis of protein-protein interaction using the yeast two-hybrid system revealed that CcaA did not interact with the large or small Rubisco subunits (RbcL and RbcS, respectively) of Synechocystis, but there was strong CcaA-CcaA interaction. This protein interaction also ceased with C-terminal truncations in CcaA greater than 60 aa. The correlation between loss of CcaA-CcaA interaction and CcaA catalytic activity suggests that the proximal portion of the C-terminal extension is required for oligomerization, and that this oligomerization is essential for catalysis by the cyanobacterial enzyme. Thus, the C-terminal extension may play an important role in the function of CA within cyanobacterial carboxysomes, which is not required by the higher plant enzymes.