Engineering of IF₁‐susceptive bacterial F₁‐ATPase

Abstract

IF1, an inhibitor protein of mitochondrial ATP synthase, suppresses ATP hydrolytic activity of F1. One of the unique features of IF1 is the selective inhibition in mitochondrial F1 (MF1); it inhibits catalysis of MF1 but does not affect F1 with bacterial origin despite high sequence homology between MF1 and bacterial F1. Here, we aimed to engineer thermophilic Bacillus F1 (TF1) to confer the susceptibility to IF1 for elucidating the molecular mechanism of selective inhibition of IF1. We first examined the IF1‐susceptibility of hybrid F1s, composed of each subunit originating from bovine MF1 (bMF1) or TF1. It was clearly shown that only the hybrid with the β subunit of mitochondrial origin has the IF1‐susceptibility. Based on structural analysis and sequence alignment of bMF1 and TF1, the five non‐conserved residues on the C‐terminus of the β subunit were identified as the candidate responsible for the IF1‐susceptibility. These residues in TF1 were substituted with the bMF1 residues. The resultant mutant TF1 showed evident IF1‐susceptibility. Reversely, we examined the bMF1 mutant with TF1 residues at the corresponding sites, which showed significant suppression of IF1‐susceptibility, confirming the critical role of these residues. We also tested additional three substitutions with bMF1 residues in α and γ subunits that further enhanced the IF1‐susceptibility, suggesting the additive role of these residues. We discuss the molecular mechanism by which IF1 specifically recognizes F1 with mitochondrial origin, based on the present result and the structure of F1‐IF1 complex. These findings would help the development of the inhibitors targeting bacterial F1.