Background: Pseudomonas aeruginosa outer membrane protein OprH has been hypothesized to confer antibiotic resistance by interaction with LPS. Results: The structure of OprH was solved and LPS interaction was demonstrated by solution NMR supported by pulldown and biochemical assays. Conclusion: OprH forms a ␤-barrel in membrane and interacts with LPS in vivo and in vitro. Significance: Structure and lipid interactions may help understand antibiotic resistance.

Solution NMR spectroscopy has become a robust method to determine structures and explore the dynamics of integral membrane proteins. The vast majority of previous studies on membrane proteins by solution NMR have been conducted in lipid micelles. Contrary to the lipids that form a lipid bilayer in biological membranes, micellar lipids typically contain only a single hydrocarbon chain or two chains that are too short to form a bilayer. Therefore, there is a need to explore alternative more bilayer-like media to mimic the natural environment of membrane proteins. Lipid bicelles and lipid nanodiscs have emerged as two alternative membrane mimetics that are compatible with solution NMR spectroscopy. Here, we have conducted a comprehensive comparison of the physical and spectroscopic behavior of two outer membrane proteins from Pseudomonas aeruginosa, OprG and OprH, in lipid micelles, bicelles, and nanodiscs of five different sizes. Bicelles stabilized with a fraction of negatively charged lipids yielded spectra of almost comparable quality as in the best micellar solutions and the secondary structures were found to be almost indistinguishable in the two environments. Of the five nanodiscs tested, nanodiscs assembled from MSP1D1ΔH5 performed the best with both proteins in terms of sample stability and spectral resolution. Even in these optimal nanodiscs some broad signals from the membrane embedded barrel were severely overlapped with sharp signals from the flexible loops making their assignments difficult. A mutant OprH that had two of the flexible loops truncated yielded very promising spectra for further structural and dynamical analysis in MSP1D1ΔH5 nanodiscs.

BackgroundSusceptibility to pepsin digestion of candidate transgene products is regarded an important parameter in the weight-of-evidence approach for allergenicity risk assessment of genetically modified crops. It has been argued that protocols used for this assessment should better reflect physiological conditions encountered in representative food consumption scenarios.AimTo evaluate whether inclusion of more physiological conditions, such as sub-optimal and lower pepsin concentrations, in combination with pancreatin digestion, improved the performance of digestibility protocols used in characterization of protein stability.MethodsFour pairs of established allergens and their related non/weakly-allergenic counterparts (seed albumins, muscle tropomyosins, plant lipid transfer proteins [LTP] and collagens) plus fish parvalbumin, were subjected to nine combinations of pH (1.2–2.5–4.0) and pepsin-to-protein ratio (PPR: 10–1–0.1 U/µg) for pepsin digestion, followed by pancreatin digestion in the presence of bile salts. Digestion was monitored by SDS-PAGE in conjunction with Coomassie staining and immunoblotting using rabbit antisera and human IgE.ResultsAt pH 4.0 and at PPR 0.1 most proteins, both allergen and non-allergen, were highly resistant to pepsin. Under conditions known to favor pepsin proteolysis, the established major allergens Ara h 2, Pru p 3 and Pen a 1 were highly resistant to proteolysis, while the allergen Cyp c 1 was not. However, this resistance to pepsin digestion only made Ara h 2 and to a lesser extent Pen a 1 and Pru p 3 stand out compared to their non-allergenic counterparts. Largely irrespective of preceding pepsin digestion conditions, pancreatin digestion was very effective for all tested proteins, allergens and non-allergens, except for Cyp c 1 and bovine collagen.ConclusionsSub-optimal pH, low pepsin-to protein ratio, and sequential pepsin and pancreatin digestion protocols do not improve the predictive value in distinguish allergens from non-allergens. Digestion conditions facilitating such distinction differ per protein pair.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s13601-018-0216-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Summary OprG is an outer membrane protein of Pseudomonas aeruginosa whose function as an antibiotic-sensitive porin has been controversial and not well defined. Circumstantial evidence led to the proposal that OprG might transport hydrophobic compounds by using a lateral gate in the barrel wall thought to be lined by three conserved prolines. In order to test this hypothesis and to find the physiological substrates of OprG, we reconstituted the purified protein into liposomes and found it to facilitate the transport of small amino acids like glycine, alanine, valine, and serine, which was confirmed by Pseudomonas growth assays. The structures of wild-type and a critical proline mutant were determined by NMR in dihexanoylphosphatidylcholine micellar solutions. Both proteins formed 8-stranded β-barrels with flexible extracellular loops. The interfacial prolines did not form a lateral gate in these structures, but loop 3 exhibited restricted motions in the inactive P92A mutant but not in wild-type OprG.